(Video courtesy tijuanapress.com )
It's been one week since a shootout between police and members of Tijuana's Arellano Felix drug cartel terrorized Tijuana. The shootout turned the streets in one of the city's upper-middle class neighborhoods into a war zone. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson returned to see how people are faring. She brings us this report.
A reporter for Tijuana Press caught the shootout on tape last Thursday.
"We were getting ready to go out when we heard it. We thought it'd be over quickly. Sadly, living here you get accustomed to these things. But when it wasn't just two or three shots…we ran upstairs and hid in my daughter's bedroom closet. And that's where we stayed for three hours. We hid our heads. I can't even describe the sound. It was thousands of shots really, really close."
This woman is still too frightened to give her name.
She lives three doors down from where drug cartel members holed up last week.
Hundreds of soldiers and police rushed into the neighborhood to flush them out.
Now the woman and her daughter clean up the blood on the sidewalk in front of their home.
"It's still fresh. We threw dirt over it. But that didn't sop it up. I thought I could get it up with the shovel. But it's still too runny. No one has cleaned it up and it's just morbid. It's attracting looky-loos. The poor policeman. I think he was the only one who died. He took cover under my mini-van. But they got him.
Agents also killed one of the drug cartel members and arrested four others. Though, one has since been released.
Seven bullets pierced the woman's mini-van. She joked she isn't sure if her insurance policy covers shootouts. She and her daughter decided to clean up while they waited for the adjuster. A neighbor suggested they scrub the bloodstains with Coca Cola.
She heard that's how police clean-up do in the U.S.
At a church just a few blocks away from where the shout out took place, there's a green poster board on the gate that says they'll be offering free psychological counseling to anyone in the community who needs it.
Leticia Munoz is a therapist who came from Mexico City.
Munoz : We're giving tips to parents and teachers. One thing we've suggested is that they allow children to bring their favorite doll or blanket to school. That way when the children feel scared, they can cuddle with it. And it's worked for some of the children for whom it's been a real struggle to go back to class.
Munoz is among a dozen therapists the federal government flew in. The therapists have fanned out to eight schools in the neighborhood.
Some people who live nearby are still too scared to go outside. For those people, the therapists make house calls.
Baja California's tourism board has also sought outside help. The board has hired a renowned crisis communications firm to help repair the state's image.
Oscar Escobedo is the state's Secretary of Tourism. He hopes the firm's campaign can help win back tourists who've stayed away because of shootouts, kidnappings and attacks on visitors.
Escobedo : Mexico is passing through maturing phase as far as a country. And we're not going to tolerate this anymore. And it is a war and you have casualties as far as wars are concerned. But, we're winning the war. We feel confident we'll have a hold on it by the first three months of this year.
However, this prediction offers little solace to many people in Tijuana. Eloina Farfan lives on the city's outskirts. Her house is made of wood scraps. She uses a rusty chain and padlock to secure her front door.
Early last week, this neighborhood was the scene of another shootout. Farfan says gunmen blasted the house across the street from hers by mistake. She says they were looking for a policeman who lives in a house with a green roof.
But they went to the green house a few doors up instead. The gunmen killed a woman and injured her three year old son and her husband.
Farfan : Now we're just watching our backs.
Farfan fears it's just a matter of time before the gunmen return for their man.
Amy Isackson, KPBS News.
