PacoLoco wrote:
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Although the raid was designed to catch robbers and drug vendors (sic), those people were back in business at Avenida 1 and Calle 9 Friday night.
Well, at least they realize this fact and hopefully will do something about it.
That would be the logical thing to do (at least logical to us). In fact, that would have been the logical thing to do from the very outset, as we've been all saying. Unfortunately, I don't think their logic works the same way as ours. The way they designed and went about this raid indicates thats not their plan and because of that I don't see why they would change it at this point unless the politics of the situation changed radically.
It seems the powers that be have decided that the crooks and drug pushers are not really the problem. Those undesireables merely follow the money trail left by drunk gringos who are down there doing things that nobody really likes. Well, by that I mean, nobody except the drunk gringos, the working girls and the businesses that cater to them. Who else is there down in the Gulch? Nobody but the crooks and beggars. The cops certainly aren't there. However that leaves everybody else in the world who like to meddle in other people's morality ... and thats a lot of people.
According to this world view, the "logical" thing to do apparently is go after those perverts and whores that lure otherwise "decent" ticos to crime. The way to go about that is to check the paperwork of the victims in this whole mess: working girls, tourists, businesses. Do you think the 19 illegal aliens that were apprehended were working the street or were inside one of our favorite bars? What about the girls who ARE working the streets because they're und***ge, crackheads, or spreading diseases? Was any effort made to round them up or are they okay because they were born in CR? What about the guys who hang out on the street? Are their most serious crimes immigration violations or are they ticos guilty of far worse things? BTW, the article said that 15 out of the 19 people apprehended were Colombians and Dominicans. What it didn't say was that the rest were Haitians
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Officials said they concentrated on hotels where foreigners might be found. Officials also said they located seven businesses that were operating without the proper licenses, permits and paperwork.
Did they even bother to check anybody outside? Not that it would have mattered since they're all tico citizens. This raid was conducted after most businesses in the area (ie the ones catering to local citizens) were closing. They only went after ones catering to us. Does anyone know which 7 businesses were busted?
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The sweep involved more than 100 officers and lasted from 7 p.m. to shortly after midnight. Some 125 persons were stopped and asked to provide papers.
That amounts to 1.25 people stopped per officer and 4 man-hours of paper checking per person stopped. Talk about your usual CR police efficiency.
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Some of the questioning was done in and around the Parque Morazán, a location notorious for nighttime robberies of tourists.
I'm relieved to know that the transvestites have all their paperwork in order or were they just busting the gringos that were walking through that park? Great, now not all to we have to be worried about being held up by crooks, we have to worry about being held up by La Migra.
Let's not K*D ourselves, this raid was never really about going after the REAL crooks. It was about going after what the authorities feel the source of the problem is, namely US and our chica and business friends. If we're lucky this will have all been a political show and things will go back to normal with a gringo getting mugged every night and the cops doing nothing about it. More likely we'll see a few more in the series of keystone cops performances before this blows over. I hold out little hope that the administration will return to sanity and deal with the problem in the way we had hoped. As long as there is money flowing in the Gulch there will be crooks that will be attracted to it. Dealing with that requires a long term law enforcement commitment. It shouldn't mean squeezing shut the money flow. VB is right for what they paid for those 100 officers for the night they could have a cop patrol there all night every night for a few months. Hell in what we pay in hotel room taxes each night could pay for that cop for a few months. Instead, they've opted for the politically easier route of a few high profile raids that will only have any effect at all on the muggings that have been taking place if they succeed at driving off the victims. Both sides need to be careful what they wish for we thought we'd be getting sensible action, but the administration seems to have responded to our pleas for help by going after the victims. The administration seems to be wishing we go away, but if we go away we take our money with us and if that happens the adminitration may find itself wishing we hadn't
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