Lakeside residents highlight justice issues

A group of concerned Lake Chapala area citizens held a press conference in Guadalajara last week to draw the metro area media’s attention to the insecurity and lack of justice plighting the Lakeside community.

The foreign community is used to crimes being solved and properly investigated, said British expatriate Paul East Raza, but at Lakeside, “crimes reported to the Ministerio Publico are almost never resolved … around 95 percent of the time, even homicides.”

“The system doesn’t work for Mexicans or Americans,” East said, adding that the Community Safety Initiative (CSI) set up 18 months ago “is now barely functioning.”

Chula Vista resident Frank Fagan was present at the meeting in Guadalajara with his lawyer Jerry Ascencio. They explained how Fagan had over 5,000 silver coins stolen from his home ten months ago.

The two principal suspects in the case worked as gardeners for Fagan. Ascencio said when his client went to the United States he trusted them to work at his house.

“When my client returned he saw that they had jeeps, jewelry and other luxury items – things that a gardener could never afford,” Ascencio explained. “Then he found that the coins were missing and he realized that they must have taken them.”

The case has yet to be resolved. Although the gardeners were arrested and confessed to the crime, they were later released after claiming they had been beaten into confessing – despite not presenting any evidence, Ascencio said.

“We have the same rights as anyone here, but unfortunately the wheels of justice don’t always turn in the right direction,” said Sandra Loridans, who works as a liaison with the municipal police and the Ministerio Publico  (MP).

“Many expatriates are feeling very uncomfortable. Many have already left to return to their respective countries,” she added. “This means an economic problem for the area. No one wants this to happen, so we must look for ways to improve the system.”

One means of reducing crime would be to put security kiosks at the entrance to fraccionamientos (subdivisions) that have only one way in and out, East suggested.

“Closing these entrances will significantly reduce the number of robberies in the area,” he said, noting that this is not currently permitted under state law.  (Only fraccionamientos registered as condominium regimen – i.e. “gated communities” – have the authority to restrict access to their streets which legally pertain to property owners.)

“I believe it can be approved at state level if the municipal government asks, but on a fraccionamiento by fraccionamiento basis,” East said.

He argued that monitoring access to fraccionamientos with only one entrance and exit would only effect its residents and contractors such as gas, electricity and telephone workers.

“You’re not impeding public transit, and in any event the kiosk (guard) would only say, ‘show me your ID, where are you going?’ It would be noted down and you’re on your way,” he explained.

Furthermore, East suggested that residents would be willing to pay for peace of mind themselves. “To avoid using the municipal budget, the government could push the responsibility onto the fraccionamientos to provide their own private security,” he said.

In the 350 houses that comprise his Chula Vista neighborhood alone, there have been 44 reported robberies in 2012, East said.

However, statistics from the Procuraduria del Estado (Jalisco Attorney General’s Office) show that 82 denuncias (official complaints) were filed with the Chapala Ministerio Publico between January 1 and November 15, regarding household burglaries in the entire municipality.  So far this year only four home robberies in Chula Vista have been registered on the Lakeside Crime Watch website (www.lakechapalacrime.com) – and of those only two were confirmed complaints filed with the MP.