Monday, April 11, 2011

A Visit to The Border

With the permission from the Chief of Police of San Diego we had the opportunity yesterday to visit several areas of the San Diego/Tijuana Border. The purpose was to visit areas where some of most famous exploits of The Border Crime Task Force occurred and document them. Along with the production crew in attendance was also Ernesto Salgado, Carlos Chacon and Eddie Cervantes - all original members of The Border Crime Task Force.

The experience was surreal. To be able to actually visit the areas you read so much about and where so much suffering occurred is just beyond words to be able to explain. So much has changed along the border since the project disbanded in the mid 1970's. Today, two huge walls which stretch for miles separate the U.S. and Mexico but back then they did not exist. People were able to move freely back and forth if they so desired. Nevertheless, today if you visit this border you can picture what it must have been like with hundreds people moving north on a nightly basis and in the pitch dark canyons the bandits waiting for them....

Special thanks to Ernesto Salgado for arranging all this and for the rest of the gunslingers who showed up and shared their memories with us.

Onward.

- Robert