[Cross-posted from another site with edits and additions].

My plans for a leisurely backroad tour of SoCal mountains and wildlands fizzled with the firestorms two weeks ago. I hoped I could at least make it to TJ that Wednesday for a couple of days. The last trip a couple of weeks before had added two irresistable chica attractions to lure me south, and I had no patience to wait my normal 3-4 week interval. Plus I am finally headed to my spinal surgery in December so I am motivated as a man with an uncertain future might be...I am highly optimistic about my outcome and really looking forward to being able to return to at least a reasonable facsimile of physical normalcy, but I have been going about these last couple of months like a condemned man enjoying an immoderate last fling.


I-5 northbound had been closed through Camp Pendleton the morning of my planned departure so I figured that even though traveling southbound from L.A., it would make sense to await the reopening of the road with iimproving conditions. I took it slow and decided to check post evening rush hour conditions, and it was clear to go.

During the day of waiting, I reviewed the TJ boards and responded to a post on another board with an angry rant against the TJ cops who have been on a rampage of criminal behavior lately. Conditions are generally perceived to have worsened over the last few years, but without any question in my mind, they are the worst ever right now for tourists. Several of my amigos have been victimized lately and after 8 years of being rarely disturbed by the police, I have been stopped on foot or in my car a ridiculous number of times over the last 3 years - and if anybody dares to suggest that I was acting in any manner whatsoever as to invite police attention, I'm gonna come and get ya! The police misbehaviors are more frequent and more aggravated than in the past - i.e. more planting of so-called illegal drugs (but they mostly use fake contraband to pass for the real - see below); outright stealing without even the pretense of a mordida; of course the cops greeting taxi passengers at the border and on and on and on; conviction and jailing of mongers AFTER they have actually been robbed of their cash by arresting officers.

I am personally outraged by the situation but I don't want to turn this report into an essay on Tijuana's practical and moral imperitive to radically alter it's law enforcement landscape. However, I did write in that vein in the post that day, and being more and more superstitious as I grow older, I am thinking that I will surely have an aggravated run-in with TJ's Slimiest on this trip.

But the most dangerous condition I encountered during the trip were the firestorms burning up Camp Pendleton when I passed through at 9PM. I have witnessed my share of wildfires, but passing through Pendleton was like watching a high budget special affects cinematic spectacular. Fire everywhere off in the hills, on the ridges, and burning furiously not more than 40-50 yards from the I-5 Northbound lanes. Fortunately I'm headed southbound - I don't know what the wind direction is but there is nothing but unburned fuel for this inferno leading from the fire line right up to the Interstate. I have to assume that I was one of the last cars through before they closed the freeway again to contain the flames oh so close to the roadside.

Otherwise I'm flying down the freeway and across the border and at the Hotel Villa de Zaragoza at 10PM. I sometimes have pre-set appointments or chica agendas when I come to TJ but rarely so dedicated to them as I was for this trip. So while I'd usually dawdle for at least a couple of hours drinking cheap beer in some dingy joint of a bar off the beaten path upon early arrival - just to get acclimated, this time I purposefully made my way diirectly to CC to begin a 2nd highly anticipated series of encounters with my new CC favorita - a moment I've been almost feverishly waiting for since I left TJ two weeks before

I am sworn never to write her name on any TJ forum by an amigo who made me aware of her and shares my infatuation and loyalty to her. Some serious puta business going on here. To keep my pledge to my amigo, I'll call her X. But what the hell - I wouldn't name her even if my amigo hadn't said a word. I'm no better than the rest of you secret keepers when I discover somebody truely extraordinary who will hold my attention for an extended period of time.

I am usually not a favorita monger - moving about from one end of the garden to another resting on fresh flowers to the limited extent that my aging wings can carry me is my usual m.o., but I have now encountered a couple of sprouts that I don't intend to fly away from anytime soon. Both will be wildly popular and unfortunately for me, they are both working at CC. Fav X really would not stand out at CC among the seasoned veteran providers and the altogether hot young pros. She is truly a "factory girl" fantasy in every aspect though at the same time a guarded pro who doesn't operate in a manner as to suck in the PLMs. She's a classic morena spinner - captivatingly cute from the neck up. From the neck down she's just a tiny little thing though she does bulge pleasingly in the right places.

Fav X is neither very conversational or demonstrative in the bar, but it is still a pleasure to ficha with her. She drinks at a generously leisurely pace and is plenty handy below the table...so much in fact that I have not been anxious to get her to the hotel which would mean an end to the pleasure I'm enjoying with her downstairs. In the room she's a talented pro dedicated to delivering GFE/PSE ecstacy - basically as good as it gets and tuned directly to my pleasure centers. She brings out my most extreme lust and passion and nasty habits to a degree that sometimes we just stop and crack up at the intensity, and we also enjoy performing hyperbolic impersonations of the porn performers on the TV in front of us at Hotel Jalos.

When my time upstairs with Fav X comes to an end, I am in that bubble of tranquility and total satisfaction that none of life's harsh elements can penetrate...except on this Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I would find the bubble unable to protect me against a physical intrusion courtesy of the TJ police.

I bounced out of CC like Fred Astaire at 2AM, joyfully in the bubble and feeling no need to pursue anything further that night. I am fully nourished by Fav X - she has filled me up while emptying me out. I got into a Taxi Libre to ride back to the VZ to hibernate. My mood was elevated as the taxista and I yucked it up...but no more yucking after the short ride turned into an attempted ass fucking.

The taxi pulled over to the right curb on Madero between Calles 2&3 at the demand of the police car behind us. At this hour of the morning during the quietist weekdays there are no vehicles along dark, silent Madero except for taxis, and police cars occupied by greedy rateros who are all the more hungry during the weeknights when few tourists are making their way on foot or in Cali licensed vehicles to the border. Still, would they stop a taxi with zero pretense for a random investigation of the passenger? You betya!

Three thugs emerged from the police car and shouted at me to get out of the cab. It was time to employ TJ police management as I've been forced to on too many other occasions over the last few years - but nothing like this. The three rules: (1) Be innocent; (2) Bite your tongue and be respectful; (3) Be ready to go see the judge, and because we owe it to our fellow mongers and all free citizens when we have done nothing wrong, pay nothing and be ready to put in at least a short stint in jail. The police have seen to it that we carry this unique burden as a counter to the pleasures of this hobby.

Oddly, the rule I had the most trouble with at this moment - perhaps because I was still feeling tranquil and also had halfway expected the night to go like this given my superstition about having written the anti-cop screed a dozen hours earlier, I had a hard time settling into the "be respectful" commandment. One of the cops conducted a half-hearted search with me up against the back of the cab and one of the other baboons tossed a handful of pills into the back seat of the cab where I had been sitting - unknowingly right in front of my eyes, I know I looked like the cat that swallowed the canary when I told this genius trying to "plant" me that in my opinion, the pills on the seat were baby aspirin, and like a smart ass inquired of his opinion. "THESE ARE ILLEGAL DRUGS" he shouted as the TJ police have a way of doing. "Hmmm...don't think so", sez I, but if they are you know as well as I that they aren't MY pills.

First question I was asked was if I spoke spanish. I told them "un poco" and was ordered that I would be required to speak to them only in spanish, even though the lead goon clearly spoke some English. Sure enough anytime I tossed out some English I was loudly reprimanded to speak only spanish. I was negligent in not carrying Sindacatura documents, but my ass was partly pulled clear of more aggravated intimidation by them secondly asking me what my work is. I told them I was a lawyer, and these idiots appear to believe that AARP-eligible U.S. lawyers might actually have some power, special knowledge or connections. In my case, only the special knowledge is true - the knowledge that we all have from following this issue on the boards. But this night the streets were so deserted, I seemed to be about the most promising available victim...the only available victim.

When asked if I was carrying any pills I told them I had a half of a Levitra, which like a dumbass I was carrying around in a Viagra prescription bottle while I had a Levitra bottle sitting in my hotel room. But it wouldn't have mattered. The boys were now jubilent - they abandoned the plan of planting baby aspirin and sent the cab away without even recovering the planted pills, and worked the Levitra sin prescription angle.

As the four of us pulled away from the curb in the police car I was told the following by the lead ratero: "You have committed many felonies in Mexico seņor. We will take you to the judge and then you are going to pay a large fine and spend a long time in prison. We will also call your boss in the U.S. and he will be very unhappy that you are committing felonies in Mexico and fire you." Wow, these guys have got to do better than this - something like, "You will be found headless in the Rio Tijuana". Are we far away from those kinds of threats?

After describing the vagaries of high tech prescription acquisition through Kaiser Permanente in L.A., I told them I had not broken any laws and since we were headed south on Madero perhaps they could drop me at the VZ and I'd even show them my Levitra prescription bottle. Surely there were more dangerous hombres prowling the dark streets that they could protect the citizens from? But they insisted that the bottle containing all the relevant prescription info wasn't adequate - I needed to have the original written prescription under Mexico law. Its bullshit.

They would regret starting a legal argument with a loudmouth L.A. lawyer and so they had to endure essentially the following which I was amazed I had adqequate spanish to deliver: "With respect gentlemen [cough cough], I disagree with all you are saying. Therefore you must take me to see a judge right now. I respect this country and its legal system, and if the judge says I've committed a crime I will pay the fine and go to jail - but it is the judge who must say it. Your job as police is law enforcement - so you have to arrest people who you have reason to believe have committed crimes. But then you have to take them to the judge so they can tell their side of the story and present any evidence that they have, and it is the judge's job to determine what the law is and if it was violated". Yikes, what a blowhard giving TJ cops a civics lesson in democracy and seperation of powers at 2:30AM.

But with no more victims to be found, our ride has just begun. Ultimately we would drive in a wide circle around Centro over and over and over again for almost 2 hours. We had the same conversation over and over - they had nothing new and so my response never changed. They pulled over at certain spots and had other ratero cops come by my car window to recite slightly different versions of how much trouble I was in, and my response remained the same. It was a Twilight Zone holiday marathon except the same episode gets repeated over and over....and you all know the ending.

Greetings to every other police car we passed along the way on this TJ tour, and every cop looked and smiled and knew what my ride was all about - not just the ones employed to actually assist the original 3 stooges. I will never be convinced that at the present time that our concern is over a few bad cops. The criminality and conspiracy against tourists is at least near-universal among these nighttime motorized prowlers of the downtown and zona neighborhoods.

At nearly 4AM I was let out of the car on a dark zona street with a strong "warning". Interesting that they had picked me up at Madero/3rd but saw fit to let me go on one of those zona streets away from the action where nobody would want to be walking...solid protection and service. They even gave me back my "illegal levitra". Of course I didn't much care where the fuck they let me go. I was relieved that the long held common wisdom of the TJ boards had held up for this police kidnapping since it has failed in too many recent instances as reported by mongers.

When I got out of the car and they drove away, there were a couple of street punks hanging around. They grinned and asked me..."Rateros?". "Si" sez me and we all grin and I moved as quickly as I could to where the lights are on and taxis cruise. I was infuriated, but satisfied that I had wasted 2 hours of the crooked cops' time and half a tank of Pemex. I was pissed at myself that I hadn't managed to gather ID info that would allow me to file an effective complaint with the Sindacatura.

I reached Coahuila and hailed nother cab - but instructing him to use Niņos Heroes to go south instead of Madero where we would likely just go through the same drill considering the long lineup of rateros in uniform waiting along that drag closer to the border. Sure enough there wasn't a single police car along Niņos Heroes and this adventure was over. I started thinking about the pleasures awaiting me on thursday, but I was agitated and adrenalized enough to lose peaceful libido restoring sleep.

The remaining two days was thankfully free of further police harassment and full of monger fantasy fulfillment and dumb drama with Fav X and Fav Y and a host of other young hotties - perhaps a story for another time. TJ is red hot for me these days - the best times I've had in 11 years of mongering there. Seems I can't walk into a bar without finding someone new and special. Lots of ground to cover...too much really.

Well I'm off this afternoon for another 3-day extravaganza. Will report back this weekend unless I'm in the carcel.

Sounds almost identical to my own late night tour of TJ ghetto neighborhoods a few years back. Right down to being dropped off in bumbfuck nowhere in the early AM.

Same thing happened to me about 3 years ago, except the MF's picked me up in front of Las Chavelas and searched me in the streets. They found viagra and I got a similar tour of TJ Barrios for 3 hours -- only they took me to many ATMs in dark places. Luckily I had withdrawn my daily limit from the ATM, and had spent most of my money already, and did not have any other cards on me.

They held onto my wallet with my ID. When I initially demanded to see their supervisor, they took me to an alley in front of what appeared to be a cop station with a bunch of cop cars parked outside; when I tried to get out, they told me to stay put. A "supervisor" eventually came over and simply told me, "[Tiene] mucho problema mi amigo".

In the end, the MF's took my cab money and lunch money of maybe $10 bucks and booted me out of the car after 3 hrs and countless ATMs.

Wow, TJ sounds very appealing. Maybe I should cancel next week's trip to Rio. The police in Rio are bad news, but these three stories suggest the rateros of TJ are several steps ahead of the porcos of Rio.

It really is an interesting tour of the city. You get to see ghetto alleys and neighborhoods that you would never have known existed otherwise. In my case, I was patently innocent of any wrongdoing and never gave them a dime. And as for where I was picked up. I was just off of Revolution about a quarter block east of the arch, which you would think would be pretty safe tourist area. I was guilty of walking down the street minding my own business.

Erip, thx for the read-- very nicely written. Glad it worked out ok for ya.

And I thought it was bad when about 20 years ago I was driving on the way to Ensenada in an area where every friggin' Mexican in a car passed me (I was religiously driving at the speed limit in an area with very low speed limit signs) and got pulled over in my new car by the police for "speeding." After interrogating me and insinuating I was also driving drunk (I didn't have a single alcoholic beverage that evening) they told me to leave my car by the side of the conveniently out of the way road and accompany them to the police station. Knowing full well that my car would no longer be there when I returned, I ended up paying the fuckers $40; unfortunately driving around with them in circles for three hours would have ended up costing me much more, i.e, my new car.

This along with some other factors eventually drove me to put TJ in the history books. I don't visit anymore even when in San Diego. Stories like Erip's (by the way, thanks for the report) only reinforce my negative feelings about the place.

Great story Erip, best of luck on your upcoming surgery.
Baddog

Man, I wish I could write like this. Good to know there are fellow lawyers who can still write with literary prowess.

Glad you are OK Erip and I wish we had more tough guy mongers like you but unfortunately most of them just pay and move on.

You gotta know when to hold them, and know when to fold them. That is also the mark of a good lawyer.

I must have good luck. I am 5 for 5 in getting pulled over or stopped by cops and nothing happened. I can't recall the 5th but i will give 4 other times.
1) I did a friend a favor, she had to pick up her nephews and nieces at the airport, we got pulled over between the TJ airport and the Pueblo Amigo where we were going to eat. They asked me for ID and insurance, I had it and gave it to them. The kids were crying and my friend was calming them down. She had all their papers ready for bringing them into the USA. She did most of the talking. End result - The cops just let us go. Honestly, I was probably in the wrong in this case, I went through one of the glorietas, and for the life of me, I still can't figure out those things.
2) Here is the one I couldn't remember, we hit the fed checkpoint between Ensenada and Tijuana. I am with two other friends, one is a doctor. A messy one, we get pulled over and they pull us out and start going through the inside of the car. The soldiers had to be pissed, they are going through the car pulling out burger king wrappers, newspapers and empty diet coke cans. Then they open up the trunk, about every drug sample you can imagine is in his trunk. Syringes y todo. Now I am freaking out. My dumbass doc buddy pulls out a pic from the glove compartment of him in green scrubs. I do a little translating for him. End result - They let us go and my buddy had his car cleaned of all the trash in it.
3) I posted about this one a couple of years ago. Me and my buddy were walking from the zona to Purple Rain. Some chick asked me for money. Since its in a major drug zone, the cops saw me give her some pocket change and thought it was a hand to hand of drugs. They put me and my buddy against the patrol car, emptied out our pockets, money, id, credit cards, everything. End result - They let us go and told us to be careful in that part of the neighborhood.
4) I am at the Acapulco in Tecate, I am about to split with my friend but he is still in the club. I go out to the car and make a phone call and leave my door open. Suddenly one of the paddy wagons pulls up, not Tecate regular cops but some other guys, I pull out my id and insurance as requested. They look over my car, and seemed to be looking for drugs. Nothing there. End result - They let me go.
5) This is when I (or we) actually got real lucky. New Years last year, we get in a checkpoint in Tijuana. I am in the backseat with one friend. This guy has a pocket full of weed. Well they take me out of the car and search me, they don't find anything. End result - They let us pass on.

I can't call it. But I have been lucky. I didn't want to write this. I have too many superstitions. Next time I may be writing about being given a tour of Tijuana in the back of a cop car. And I will admit, in that time frame I was pulled over in the United States only twice. Both times I was let go with no ticket or arrest.

Shame on you Blazers. Despite our many differences, (coupled with your irrational flame wars) I have never (nor never will) openly discuss or name the kind of work you do.

Privacy and anonymity is precedent on this site in never publicly naming one's chosen profession. It's somewhat unethically incorrect to "out" one's source of employment or career status.

You just did.

You have clearly violated T.O.S. rules. You should be banned from this forum.

Master Bates.

Ay naku, Erip stated he was a lawyer, I didnt out him. It is widely known what my profession is here so I could care less if people know it or not.

Still waiting for that great Jakarta trip report MB......

Bullit; After reading your post and the ones above it. The one thing that stands out is that they were flying solo, and you were always with another person.

No witness, no crime.

RG.

I am bewildered when I hear guys who enjoy mongering in TJ express discouragement from going there because of these police scumbags.

So far, even though the behavior is more frequent and aggravated than in the past, there are still only rare instances where the police have broken through certain traditional and recognized lines of containment - and even then the only thing you have to lose is some money if they rob you outright. We still aren't hearing about any beatings or threats of violence...that would really change the landscape and it seems they aren't willing to take it that far.

We are free citizens and we can't cave in to petty tyranny and that is all this is. We know what to do and knowledge is power. If the individual circumstance makes it EXTREMELY inconvenient to resist the extortion, then pay a little bit and move on. Its just money. Let's have us some fun!

Viva Tijuana! Viva Las Putas!

Last year, on only my second visit to TJ, I had a run-in with policia while walking a block over from Streetgirl Lane. In my naivity, I couldn't contain my annoyance, asking the cops why they were hassling me out of all the other people on the street.

They searched me, found a Vitamin C tab and asked what it was. I pointed to a nearby farmacia and said I'd bought it over the counter. They admonished me, saying I should report the pharmacy for illegally selling it. I pointed out that the sign in front clearly advertised that product.

Astonishingly, the lads backed off, mumbling something about how they just wanted to warn me that I was walking toward a gay area.

Tolerating this nonsense makes little sense. Your real power is to stop spending there. Tijuana needs tourists more than police.

Tujunga, I agree. This is why I couldn't care less if I were never to set foot inside TJ again. I have mongered way inside Mexico, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Mexico City and have never had to deal with the kind of unnecessary harassment that we are forced to deal with from these so-called "police officers" that we are forced to endure while traveling to a border town just to get laid.

I've read many, many, reports on this. I'm fed up with either hearing about, or reading about another innocent monger who was driven around aimlessly through the back streets of TJ in some smelly, dirty Paddy wagon where these organized gangs who don police uniforms try every scare method to try and extort money from you.

Nothing will happen until we all take a stand. it will take a group of us to band together and go down to the Tijuana Tourist Board and continuously (and I do mean CONTINUOUSLY) file complaint after complaint until the higher-ups in Mexican government finally hear out plea for help.

None of this would be going on today if Spain still controlled Mexico. Since the fall of the Spanish Empire (1821) the whole place went to shit and it's been a struggling Third-World shit hole to this day. Unfortunately, they take it out on us rich folk who can afford to pay for good pussy.

Master Bates.

I am bewildered when I hear guys who enjoy mongering in TJ express discouragement from going there because of these police scumbags.

Despite my negative expirences with the polica in TJ I find them tolerable. I figure I get patted down and searched more often than anyone but by now I am used to it. ALWAYS hold your money in you hand when they search ya and generally never any problems. Even on the bridge where many problems have been reported as of late. All is well.

What discourges me from going to TJ is the just plain shitty service and bad attitude from said putas.

sad to hear about this Erip, but i am glad you stuck to your guns on this one... I had my bad experience last year in broad daylight walking toward Chicago Club.. I ended up paying $100 to the Black car cops for a long ride to the border, they insisted i had drugs in my body.