Bodyguard

by Craig Summers

  When we landed, we were straight back out there. With body armour in tow and the med-pack on board, we hit the streets immediately with the army. Ricardo wasn’t with us – his mother-in-law was in hospital. We went directly to overt filming. Darkness fell at 6 p.m. – that meant the curtain came up on trouble. As soon as the lights went out, the killings would start. We met our escorts at the police station. My adrenalin was in overdrive. I couldn’t get out into Ciudad Juárez quick enough, organising the cops myself and urging them to let me drive! Matthew and Chuck took the front vehicle so if they came across anything they would be first there; Ian and I brought up the rear. Two cops were standing in the back, blues and twos on the vehicle, and their weapons pointing out. I loved it.

  ‘Do you want to go inside the vehicle?’ they intimated for safety.

  I couldn’t help my reply. ‘No way, José.’ I found myself delivering the punchline of the century.

  We pegged it out of the station, hurtling down the road with grit flying everywhere. I took stills for the website as we flew through the streets. We pulled up at a checkpoint – Chuck jumped out to see what was happening and take some general shots. All of a sudden, there was a big commotion. The police sergeant was shouting into the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Back in the vehicles, back in the vehicles,’ he screamed.

  The lights were flashing and we were off again. It felt like Formula One. I was hanging on in the back, like being on a ride at theme park. It was fun but scary, real life. I tried to lean round the side to see what was going on.

  ‘Cuerpo … cuerpo!’ was all I heard.

  ‘It’s a body, it’s a body!’ I shouted to Ian.

  We screamed round the bend, down a side street and screeched to a halt. There was a car in front of us. The locals were surrounding the black saloon – the driver’s door was open and the police had masks on their faces. I shouted to Chuck to get in there and film. I rushed forward with Ian, taking pictures of the scorch marks on the side of his cheek.

  ‘They are not bullet holes, mate,’ I said to Ian.

  ‘They are saying that’s where he’s been shot in the face,’ he replied.

  To the side of the car, a woman was screaming. It was her husband. We were standing in a crime scene, in a pool of blood with cartridges all around us, but none of the local police were bothered. It was a mess. We were contaminating evidence and they didn’t care. I’m sure this was the same night after night.

  ‘He’s only a mechanic … why have they done this to him?’ the wife was screaming.

  I knew there was more to this. As I took pictures, it was obvious that they weren’t the gun shots. Then a copper pulled the victim’s jacket aside. There were four large bullet holes just above the heart. They had shot him there just to make sure. They had done it up close with 9mm bullets, and they had rebounded and hit him on the face.

  While I was taking pictures and Matthew was trying to get the wife to talk on camera, one of the police came running over to order us into the car. Something serious had come over the radio. We hadn’t had this much luck on our last visit. Matthew and Chuck grabbed their stuff and jumped in, as we floored it out of one crime scene to another, with no idea where we were heading. As we approached a roundabout downtown, we saw a white Suzuki Jeep ahead, lights flashing. They were beginning to cordon it off. There was a body on the floor, covered with a jacket.

  ‘Two people have been killed,’ one policeman said. ‘The other is inside the car.’

  You could see that there were four bullet holes in the side and one at the rear; all around, cartridges lay on the floor. The gold of the bullet glistened in the night sky. I was stopped from taking pictures despite having taken loads already. Local TV had also turned up, and only those who knew the police officers were allowed to film. As I walked round the vehicle, the police telling me to move back even though I was with them, I spotted a priest coming across the roundabout and thought I had to get this. I was on a job and this was going to be the last rites shot. I kept telling the cops I was travelling with them but still they tried to move me. The priest lifted the body off the jacket.

  The victim was seven years old. That hit home.

  As you would expect, the clergy made the sign of the cross. The priest escorted the grandfather towards the body. As he saw the face of the young boy, he held his face and began screaming. He had already identified his own son in the car – a 28-year-old called Raúl. I knew we had a great story, whatever the human cost.

  I needed to know what had happened. All along the passenger side of the brand spanking new white Jeep, it was just covered in blood. As I stood there taking the pictures, I was filled in on the details.

  ‘The young boy tried to get out after his dad was shot. Because the kid could identify the gunman, he shot the lad. And as he tried to get out and crawl away from the vehicle, he shot him again. About five metres in front of the vehicle, he collapsed. The gunman shot him again,’ the eye-witness told me in Spanish.

  Chuck filmed the lot.

  ‘What has he done to deserve this?’ the wife bellowed. Another girl screamed his name.

  This was a street on which many had been killed before. Fifteen had been slain on this stretch alone. Just for drugs. All the relatives and friends started turning up. It was hysteria. When they spoke, they covered their faces and didn’t reveal their names, anxious not to join the ever-growing list of ‘killed by association’. The jeep said money and, round here, that meant drugs. It was obvious to me that the victim had been followed. The previous victim was mowed down by his house – that told you he had been targeted. We hung around as long as we could. We had our story. Unlike our previous visit, we had struck gold within hours of arriving.

  Ian and I discussed our plan. It was now half nine at night. We had some cracking stuff; all we needed was a piece to camera from Matthew to add to the one he had done in the back of the truck on the way to the first murder, and we had more than enough for the night. We would need to get back over the border to package it. Unless another murder came in sharpish, we would call it a day. Ten minutes later, the blues and twos were on again.

  ‘This is crazy,’ I said to Ian. We were bombing it down to a corner of a road on the side of a hill – all the street lights were out. It looked like we were walking into a trap. There was a gunman on the roof.

  ‘Put your vests on,’ I shouted to Chuck and Matthew. We took refuge in the drainage ditches beside the road. All of a sudden, we were off, running with the cops and chasing them, chasing proper villains. All the police had their pistols drawn. I loved it. The policeman motioned to the roof. ‘Over on the roof, over on the roof,’ I shouted to Chuck.

  Two of the police were scrambling across it. Chuck desperately tried to get up there but couldn’t make it. Nor could he see his footing because of the pitch black. Instead he followed the police into the house. This was proper brave camerawork, following them in, clearing each room. There was nothing. No gunman, no bodies.

  I was gutted. I was all up for a bit of Miami Vice. What it showed was how bad things now were, and that the army-controlled police had more than their work cut out, racing from one incident to another on a nightly basis. Sometimes they would arrive in time; at others they would be left cleaning up the mess. Equally, there would be nights when the cartels or their hired hit men would flee and live to fight another day. Inevitably, both parties would run into each other again soon.

  Driving back through downtown Ciudad Juárez, we were on a high. I pegged it back to the border. We all bantered about what we had seen – life was cheap and if you play these games you get burned. The child was unfortunate and the only one I felt something for but the dad was knee deep in shit. It was a proper cartel assassination. He had thrust this his family’s way and deserved his fate. We had got what we’d come for.

  The next day we had been invited to meet Ramos in the city prison. He had been a schoolteacher for three or four years, earning no more than $500 a month. He also had a se
cond career. Ramos used to drive across the border as a drug mule. For that, he would get $500 per day! What a waste of a life for an educated man, capable of influencing the next generation. He was in the slammer for a decade. He had gone undetected for two years and had no regrets – he was feeding his family on a handsome income. Now, he had a lot of time to think and a lot to be remorseful about. He had been caught with drugs in his spare tyre. In that moment, his heart sank and he knew the game was up.

  The prison was massively overcrowded. Ramos was one of four people in his cell. It was like an army barracks in there – the various cartels had their own blocks on each of the three floors. Previously, in March, there had been a massacre in the prison when some twenty people were killed. I wasn’t surprised. If the police had lost control of the streets to the gangs, the justice system had also caved in on the inside. The gangs did their own security in their own cell blocks – some of them huge big Mexicans, tattooed all over with a fearsome look in their eyes. Being inside meant nothing to them – their power still reigned – and we were just wandering in among them with no warden accompanying us! I approached one of them to see if they minded if we film. It was no problem at all, though they asked for their faces not to be shown.

  I wasn’t scared, but I didn’t want to hang around. There were some very nasty people in there, and it looked like a place where guards knew best to turn a blind eye. They were all in balaclavas – again, for fear of repercussions on the outside. It had taken 250 police and army to quash the two-hour riot last time. There was no doubt where the balance of power lay here.

  That said, I liked Ramos. Predictably, I think he had found God inside. He knew he had fucked up. He was a genuinely nice guy and was now paying the price. Though, as was the way, the drug cartels were still looking after his family. Ramos alluded to this when Matthew asked him how his family were surviving now, given those vast riches before, and that meant one thing. When he came out, the cycle would repeat itself. He was a crook with a record; often the only work they could find when they came out was more of the same, plus he was now indebted to the mob for maintaining his status quo while he took one for them. His life was technically over – he was on a retainer. He would either end up shot, or back inside. An intellectual among thugs, he would quickly conclude that the smart thing to do was to avoid splitting ranks and dobbing anyone in.

  He told us he had loved being a schoolteacher, but with two kids and his own mum and dad living in the same house, he needed the money. He actively went looking for the work, and in this part of the world, it was easy to find. Everyone knew the score about the unofficial industry of Ciudad Juárez. You were never going to be part of the familia’s inner circle but you could be a very well-rewarded nephew or cousin.

  He was better educated than me, and in truth society needed him out there. Now he was doing a decade inside because he wanted to feed his family. I didn’t feel for him, but I did for the system. Despite his obvious crime, there was nothing dishonest or criminal about him. There was a demand for the drugs business; he was the supplier who didn’t ask any questions. He was caught up in it. Ramos knew what he was getting into, he was not an innocent victim, but I found myself having some sympathy where my sentiment over the baby in the tsunami or Stuart’s foot had been nothing but a functional reaction. I respected what he did for his family. If I’m being objective, there were still 1.5 million people in Ciudad Juárez earning $200 a month who hadn’t turned to crime, and this guy was organised by the prison service to talk to us. He wanted to put his story out there so he would look good and society would look favourably on him. It was the age-old problem for us, a bit like like being embedded. If you want access, you will take whoever gets put up for interview. We weren’t going to get a cartel member on camera.

  Ramos was the most interesting person we met, even though there were both players and pawns in there. It was generally a housing estate for the low life, and your manor was your manor. A turf war could kick off again at any point. A cursory glance could cost you your life. He told me as well that he’d never thought he would get caught, and I could well imagine that after the first run, and then a week of scurrying across the border, followed by a month that turned into a year, you would start to feel invincible. Of course, as soon as you had entered the game just once, you were trapped in the system. Whether you were caught or not, you were trapped. And Ramos still had time to do. Lots of it.

  Next, we went on a sightseeing tour of Ciudad Juárez, checking out the areas of interest, sniffing out where the cartels hung around. We saw, first-hand, the work of the baby assassins at a bar on the corner – that fascinated me, that they had used the kids as patsies to do their dirty work. It was almost as fanatical as some parts of the Middle East or Afghanistan – start them young. We saw one bar where ‘Jesus, The Devil’ had been gunned down, just three days after getting out of jail. He had been shot seven times in the head. We were on a murder tour of the city. At one house, fourteen bodies were found inside. In disasters and wars, you could understand it but that figure was incredible. Assassination was a stronger word than murder, but this was exactly what was going on. Our guide didn’t know the story but they were linked to the cartels – people had stopped asking about the details. It was all so matter-of-fact, so normal and routine, so everyday in Ciudad Juárez. We had got the picture, and we had got the pictures. Why this story hadn’t been investigated before and why Ciudad Juárez wasn’t a watchword around the world like Lockerbie, Dunblane or Beirut was beyond me. This was officially the most dangerous city in the world and nobody was talking about it. I felt totally vindicated that Ian and my hunch had paid off. In fact, we had so much footage now that anything else was just duplication.

  That meant that, as with any Craig Summers trip, there had to be some me time. I wanted to go up Main Street during the day to see how it functioned in daylight.

  ‘Have you heard of the Kentucky Bar?’ our chaperone asked. Ah yes, the Kentucky Bar! ‘It’s where the margarita was invented.’

  It was the strongest margarita I had ever tasted – like fuel. So powerful was it that I had to have two just to be sure. I couldn’t stand the drink, but I loved a bit of history. To be sat in this dingy bar that Hollywood A-listers used to frequent was the icing on the cake for a great trip. I toasted myself at the same bar where Liz Taylor and Richard Burton used to come to drown their sorrows and from which Steve McQueen and Jack Dempsey would crawl out on all fours. Today, there was hardly anyone in there, only the memorabilia on the walls signposting a different era and a glorious past. Nowadays, of course, none of the big names could take their chance on a night out in Juárez.

  The next night, we were due to leave. Before that, we had one more job to do. We got the call that the funerals of the victims we had seen on our first night out would be tomorrow or the day after. We were invited to the house to see the father lying there in an open coffin. On the approach at the corner plot, five guys in sunglasses were standing outside looking very shady on their mobiles. That said a cartel house to me. You don’t just have five burly blokes outside your front door for no reason. I took the wheel, staring at them staring back at us. With all of us crammed into the back of a US-plated 4x4, we must have looked dodgy, too. People like us didn’t come down this way.

  We couldn’t find the victim’s house, and I didn’t really want to drive back past the house on the corner. There were no street signs. We stopped to ask for directions. I could see the local gesturing a left and I knew what was coming – I was heading straight back that way, one block along. I didn’t like it one bit, but there were no other options. As I turned, I tried not to look across. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I couldn’t stop myself glancing at the corner house. Then I floored it past to the top of the hill. I could see the mob chatting on their phones again in the rear mirror. In reality, we were only about fifty metres away all the time, but we just struggled to find the street – you can see how close the victim lived to the cartel. F
inally, we turned and saw a line of cars. I recognised one of the guys from the other night. We were told to wait while our middleman went in to clear the way.

  ‘Look at them over there,’ I said to Ian. ‘They’re just standing there looking at us.’

  ‘Let’s do something rather than sitting here like idiots.’

  Moments later, we were in, much to my relief. I walked past the mourners, offering a hand to shake as we were led into a yard out the back. The return of the handshake told me we would be fine. In the yard, all the men were sitting around. When the camera came in, they turned away, hiding behind their hoodies and shades. From there, a doorway took us into the front room where the coffin was laid out. The casket said drug money – and lots of it. This wasn’t a poor family. Chuck was free to film the family, head in hands all around. Matthew interviewed the victim’s sister.

  Part of the coffin was open – there was a picture of the father and the son. The man had separated from the child’s mother. For that reason, the two weren’t being buried together. The father would be the day after; later, the son would have a service with two other young victims. We asked permission to attend and made our way to the church. It was rammed. Even though funerals like this were happening every day, you always got a good send-off. Why? Because so many people were wrapped up in the drugs trade. There was the family … and there was the family. The son’s wreath, attached to this huge fuck-off Chevvy, confirmed that. Again, I recognised the grandparents from the other night. It had been the grandfather who had identified him. It was also the same priest who had administered the last rites at the scene. Today, the boy’s coffin had a football shirt draped over it.