Posted by RickFeliz on February 28, 2001 at 03:06:57:
In Reply to: Re: an' I bet all three times dat brotha got killed... posted by Redongdo on February 28, 2001 at 02:46:40:
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Published on February 24, 2000
"This is a map of the traffic accidents in Tijuana last year," he says. "I am looking at it from a doctor's point of view. Surveillance of risk factors." Perhaps more important, what he's looking at is the progenitor for another map: A "crime map" of the city, showing in detail where crimes take place, with "pop-up" facts in each instance about aggressor, victim, and circumstance. With 62 murders in its first six weeks of 2000, Tijuana needs some Rx. (San Diego only had 58 murders for the whole of last year.) But Dr. Rubio is no first-aid man. His fixes are aimed at the long term. In his practice of studying violence, he's attempting to build a multilayered picture of the city and its problems. In the last two months, what appear to be gangland executions have been carried out in three Tijuana locations: Mesa de Otay (16 killings), LA MESA(14 killings), and the Zona Centro -- downtown Tijuana -- (11 killings). To San Diegans, even raw information like this can be useful -- to know where not to go late at night or which roads require caution. To Dr. Rubio, the city's epidemiologist, and to his main backer, city councillor Renato Sandoval Franco, mapping violence is an effort to get authorities beyond a case-by-case reaction to shootings and collisions. Rubio wants to get to the roots of Tijuana's escalating crime and traffic accidents -- the two most dangerous elements of Tijuana life. With so many murders notched up this year, it may seem curious that Dr. Rubio worries more about the city's fatal-traffic-accident rate (last year's figure was 110, compared with San Diego's 79) than the murder rate. Yet due to the defined roles of city, state, and federal police, Sandoval and Rubio walk a fine line when it comes to applying their statistical analyses efforts to crime. "We haven't started [building crime maps] because it's very delicate, how we want to handle this," says Sandoval. "The municipal [city] police function is prevention. Crime investigation is state police responsibility. And the investigation of drug-related crimes is in the hands of the federal police." (snip) |
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