FBI Helps Mexico Investigate Murders
EL PASO, Texas - The FBI's endorsement of a binational investigation of more than 320 murders of women and girls in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico won praise Thursday from "border activists" who want the nine-year crime spree solved.
Hardrick Crawford Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI office in El Paso, backed the task force in a two-hour, closed-door meeting Wednesday in Juarez with some of Mexico's top law enforcement officials.
"I told them that what was happening in Juarez was a crime against humanity," he said in the El Paso Times. "I told them we would be willing to assist and even provide agents to be part of the task force."
Crawford said the Mexican officials thanked him for attending and said they would go back to Mexico City and "work on trying to get such a task force in place."
The FBI was invited by a Mexican federal legislative commission appointed to investigate the slayings and by Lorenzo Aquino, director of the Mexican federal attorney general's office in Juarez. The last time Mexican officials asked the FBI for its opinion on the unresolved murders was in 1999 when profilers were sent to Juarez.
There was a heated moment when Mexican federal police said they couldn't take over the cases unless the crimes had ties to organized crime or drug trafficking, according to participants quoted by the Times.
Since 1993, more than 320 women have been murdered in Juarez across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Some experts believe as many as 90 of the women might have been serial murder victims. There have been arrests at times but never any convictions.
Recently the call for a binational investigation has picked up steam, and the cases have attracted the attention of Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and several state legislators from Texas and New Mexico.
The FBI's support of a joint investigation was praised Thursday by two El Paso activists who have been pushing for a more effective investigation to solve the murders.
Clemencia Prieto, director of the El Paso Center for Family Violence, said the FBI's support was another encouraging sign that a binational task force may be formed.
"This is really affecting our community to see that one murder after another murder happens and there is no successful resolution," she said.
Prieto said there must a change in attitude and more respect for women regardless of their economic standing in the community.
Victor Munoz, a retired AFL-CIO official and a longtime activist, praised the FBI's offer to help in a joint investigation of the border killings.
"We can have as many press conferences as we want, we can have as many rallies, we can have demonstrations, and the killings will continue," he said. "What we need are investigations to arrest, prosecute and punish. We need a binational investigation. That is the only way to stop the killings."
More than 320 girls and young women have been slain in Juarez. Many of them moved to the city seeking better paying jobs at the "maquiladoras," the manufacturing plants operated by U.S. companies in Mexico. Many were raped and their bodies tossed in fields and ditches.
Copyright 2002 United Press International