By BRENDA RODRIGUEZ / The Dallas Morning News

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – It was a horrific scene. The veteran Chihuahua state police chief and his two sons dead, stuffed in the trunk of a car parked on a
bridge to El Paso.

They had been beaten, strangled and stabbed.

Seven years later, at the opposite end of the Rio Grande, across from Brownsville, a Tamaulipas state police commander was mortally shot four times in the head in
broad daylight as he sat in a car, with his assistant. He and the assistant – also executed – were just blocks from police headquarters in Matamoros.

Separated by time and distance, local reaction was strikingly similar: apathy.

"We're used to that," explained Angeles Ruíz, who chatted with a friend on a recent evening across the street from a police office. "It happens all the time."

High-profile bloodshed generates chatter among border city residents, but little else. In communities where there is little or no faith in law enforcement and due
process, the belief is often that the victims of such public slayings lived dangerously, often working in the drug trade.

"In Juárez, you're used to having people killed all the time," said one El Paso border official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dr. Cheryl Howard, a sociology professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, said part of the problem with Mexican border crime, such as that in Juárez, is that
much of it is committed with impunity.

"Also underlying the seeming inability to solve so many of them [crimes] is an unspoken, but generally agreed upon, suspicion that every man who is killed is
connected to drug dealing and that women wouldn't be murdered if they behaved as they should," Dr. Howard said.

Drug cartels have long exercised tight grip of border cities, luring many into the trade and bribing Mexican law enforcement for protection.

"Profits from drug dealing are potentially much higher than the pay police receive, a powerful incentive, regardless of which side of the border you are on," Dr.
Howard said.

Even clean Mexican law enforcement officials are guilty by association. As a result, residents become distrustful, particularly of the very people who are suppose to
enforce the law. The line separating the good and the bad is blurred.

"You've grown to be disillusioned by the authorities," the border official said. "That's just the fact of life."

Mexican authorities aren't all bad, some police officials insist.

The Tamaulipas state police force, for instance, is making efforts to clean up its image. Authorities are recruiting officers outside of the area, and have reassigned
police commanders to new posts to thwart corruption.

Additionally, the Tamaulipas state police force – consisting of about 700 agents who handle most criminal investigations – is also expecting a pay raise. They typically
earn $700 to $800 per month.

"Citizens shouldn't be afraid of the police," said Commander Hernán Gómez Eddy, of the state police force in Matamoros, as investigators walked in and out of
headquarters, guns stuffed in the waistbands of their pants.

The police force is "100 percent professional, and there are people who are very effective," said Commander Gómez, on the job for a month, the fifth commander in
the last two years.

Hard to ignore

But erasing a negative image some residents have of Mexican police, and the violence that accompanies corruption, could prove difficult.

Brownsville resident Oscar García said people are "conditioned" to such violence. His family is from Matamoros. Although he is not afraid of traveling to the
Mexican border city, he says he understands why others are.

"If you've seen it [violence], if you're around it, it doesn't affect you," he explained. "It doesn't surprise you."

Some El Pasoans prefer not to venture into Juárez because they fear they'll become the next victims. Street vendors say tourism is down for that reason.

"Tourism is ending because they [tourists] are extorted [by police]," said Socorro Vargas, a server at a Juárez restaurant.

People are easy targets in Juárez, said El Paso resident Roberta Jacobs, as she shopped not far from an international bridge in downtown El Paso recently.

"At least here you can scream and we have some protection, securities, and police that have to kind of abide by the rules," she said. "I'm not afraid on my side when
I'm in my car, but if I were driving in Juárez in my car, I wouldn't do it. I'd be scared because they'd stop me, take my car, do what ever they wanted with me.
Nobody would care."

Effect on Texas

There is also concern that the violence will spill over into the United States.

Several months ago, Laredo police were closely watching the bloodshed across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo. A crime wave swept through Nuevo Laredo last
year, including drug-related slayings claiming dozens of lives, including those of police officers. The victims had ties to the Gulf Cartel, headed by Oziel Cárdenas
Guillen, authorities said.

"The statistics are kind of high on the violent crimes" across the border, said Laredo police Deputy Chief Gilberto Navarro. "From what I understand, there's about
anywhere from 55 to 60 murders [last] year recorded in Nuevo Laredo, and in Laredo [last] year we [had] seven."

'Element of surprise'

Last summer, four gunmen entered a private Nuevo Laredo hospital and shot to death alleged drug smuggler Ismael Flores Godinez. Mr. Flores' employee, who was
at the hospital with him, also died. Mr. Flores's wife, who was unharmed, witnessed the murders. Mr. Flores was in the hospital recovering from gunshot wounds
sustained in another incident.

A hospital administrator, who asked not be identified because of safety concerns, said it was the first time such a crime had been committed at the hospital, noting
that the staff was traumatized by the incident.

"They had everyone lie on the floor" as they made their way through the hospital, the administrator recalled. The gunmen told the staff, "If you move, we'll kill you,"
the administrator said.

Although threats were made, it was clear that the assailants only wanted Mr. Flores, the administrator said.

Chief Navarro said there is an "element of surprise" in such brazen crimes.

"It's the kind of stuff you normally would expect in a movie, not in real life," he said.

As in other border cities, many of these crimes remain unsolved – the suspected culprits turn up dead, they pay off police to avoid arrest or simply disappear.

Sitting next to a large picture of the Virgin Mary, perched on a bench in the El Paso downtown plaza, María Ceniceros said she knows who stabbed her son three
times and killed him seven years ago in Juárez. A robbery attempt, she was told.

A relative of the killers, she said, paid authorities to turn the other way. They walk the streets of Juárez free men.

"Justice isn't going to be served," she said, walking off.

Story of police chief

A few miles away, people recalled the brutal slaying of José Rubalcava, a former state police chief, who had served for 32 years. Authorities believe the ruling drug
cartel in Juárez – the Carrillo Fuentes crew – killed Mr. Rubalcava, and his two sons, to keep him from cooperating with U.S. investigators.

A man drove a Honda Accord onto an international bridge, leaving it at mid-span on the U.S. side, before running off. The three bodies were found in the trunk. A
DEA official at the time said Mr. Rubalcava had a yellow cord tied around his mouth with a bow.

It was a package, authorities said, delivered to U.S. authorities by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Juárez drug lord, who died in 1997 after a botched plastic surgery.
His brother, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, took over the organization and was indicted in September 2000 for the deaths of the Rubalcavas, along with other murders.

Residents weren't shocked by the Rubalcavas' deaths, though its gruesomeness proved more appalling.

"Here in Juárez, there wasn't much [reaction] ... nothing," recalled Ignacio Falcón, a Juárez market vendor. "He probably had enemies."

Even though many don't dispute that the former police chief and his sons were murdered in Juárez, Mexican authorities still don't acknowledge the crime was
committed on their turf.

"Who says they were killed here?" asked northern Chihuahua state Deputy Attorney General Elfego Bencomo López. Mr. Bencomo resigned from his post several
weeks after being interviewed. He was the sixth attorney in that position in less than five years.

Who can be trusted?

Mr. Bencomo said it's not uncommon for people to "question" authority, saying the police are not without rogue officers.

"We, as authorities, know we have good people, honest people, and hard-working people. People who risk their lives for the community," Mr. Bencomo said of
police officers. "But sometimes we have people who are not so good, who make big mistakes."

Another shooting that made headlines in Juárez in 1997 resulted in the deaths of six people, including some university students, at a restaurant. At the time, the Juárez
police chief called it one of the bloodiest massacres he had seen.

The target, reportedly, was a drug dealer in the club; an arrest was made.

Nearly five years after the massacre – remodeled and renamed – the place is now a popular bar and grill.

"People are interested, and they get bothered by it," said an employee at the restaurant, 33 Live, of such crimes. "But, time passes and people forget."

The employee asked not to be identified for safety concerns.

For this restaurant employee and others such as the street vendor, Mr. Falcón, and Ms. Vargas, public massacres aren't out of the norm. They simply try to stay out
of the fray.

"That's the way it is," shrugged Mr. Falcón.