Chuey Hernandez walked right down to the fence and caught the two figures in his beam. They dodged his light. They ducked down. He would always remember the one wearing a bandanna around his head-a cholo bandanna, Chuey Hernandez called it.
Chuey Hernandez had never seen pollos behave like this. They could have easily run away in the darkness, but they didn't. Guides would not hang around the fence like that. In the experience of Chuey Hernandez, the only ones who would hang around the fence were smugglers of aliens, guns, or narcotics. Or perhaps they were alien robbers. Chuey Hernandez advanced toward the fence pointing his gun at the man in the Levi jacket with the cholo bandanna around his head.
It was then that Renee Camacho heard Chuey Hernandez yell, "Get back over here, you spiders!"
And then Manny Lopez, wearing a bandanna around his mosquito-bitten skull, stood up, exposing his body, and made a controversial statement. He yelled "Leave us alone! We don't have any money!"
But Chuey Hernandez had not asked for money. The statement said it all. It revealed exactly what was in the mind of Manny Lopez.
Chuey Hernandez was fungus. He began cocking and uncocking his revolver. It was so eerily quiet that they could hear the sound distinctly, the oily metallic click as the hammer fell and was cocked, and fell and was cocked. Chuey Hernandez crouched under the fence and stepped toward the United States of America.
The Barfers began moving from concealment as Chuey Hernandez walked down into the gully, his flashlight illuminating Manny Lopez, who was now standing at a higher elevation, above the head of Chuey Hernandez, looking down on him.
Chuey Hernandez glanced back behind him as Pedro Espindola advanced cautiously toward the fence, a slender, bullet-shaped silhouette in his police helmet.
By now Chuey Hernandez was well aware of other figures in the darkness. He was facing Manny Lopez and Joe Castillo above him. Off behind him and to his right were Renee Camacho, Joe Vasquez, Tony Puente, Carlos Chacon and Ernie Salgado.
Chuey Hernandez was angry and he was scared. He said, "Come out of there, you bastards, or I'll get you out with a bullet!"
And he pointed the gun up at Manny Lopez, standing on the mound of concrete by the uprooted tree. Manny pushed Joe Castillo's head, whispering, "Stay down! Stay down!"
Chuey Hernandez' bravado was wavering at this point and he turned to Pedro Espindola and said, "They don't want to come!"
His partner said, "Let see if they don't want to come!"
And he began scrambling down into the ravine with Chuey Hernandez, who yelled again: "You son of a bitch! You bastards! Come out!"
For the record, Chuey Hernandez was at this point probably standing six feet inside U. S. territory. Pedro Espindola was three feet closer to his homeland. For the record, Chuey Hernandez and Pedro Espindola were both in the state of California, U. S. A., exhibiting a deadly weapon in violation of Section 417 of the California penal code. For the benefit of lawyers, it was later noted that Section 467 of the California penal code was also violated. The Tijuana policemen were in possession of deadly weapons with intent to assault. Perhaps.
A criminal investigator for the district attorney's office of San Diego County would later make a notation in his narrative report. The notation made by the investigator was that at this moment, if Manny Lopez had identified himself as a police officer, the incident under investigation would probably never have occurred. The investigator of course did not understand about myth and legend and folklore.
Joe Castillo and Joe Vasquez separately said later: "When Manny braced the fat cop, it was just like Gunsmoke. "
And that was probably as well put as could be. Manny Lopez stood looking down at the Tijuana cops with his badge down beside one leg and his gun down beside the other. The Tijuana cops at this moment could see neither. Then Manny Lopez leaped. It was a six-foot drop to the bottom of the gully. He slid slightly upon impact, staggering two or three steps in the direction of Chuey Hernandez, and they were suddenly at arm's length in the darkness.
A lot of things happened simultaneously, or nearly so. No one will ever know in precisely which order things happened, and really it's not relevant except to lawyers and judges and others who might deny that this was predestined and inevitable from the moment that Manny Lopez challenged the authority and machismo of the two Tijuana policemen.
For everyone else, the inevitable fact was this: Manny Lopez leaped from the embankment to the feet of the wary Mexican cops. He brought up two things, one in each hand: a badge and a gun. He yelled, " Polica! Polica!"
As Pedro Espindola yelled, "He's got a gun!"
Chuey Hernandez reacted to the movement by jerking up his pistol, striking Manny Lopez in the chest with it.
Manny Lopez raised his left arm in defense and fell to his left.
Simultaneously all Barfers were aiming their already drawn guns. Some aimed two guns. One Barfer saw a badge in Manny's hand. The others didn't see it. Four saw Chuey Hernandez fire a shot. Three did not see who fired first.
All of this occurred in a fraction of a second.
There were fireballs, and one huge endless explosion in the ears of Chuey Hernandez. He felt no pain whatsoever. He was cranking off rounds at shadows. One second he was firing and the next he felt his feet go right out from under him.
Tony Puente fired two shots at Chuey Hernandez.
Ernie Salgado fired five shots at Pedro Espindola.
Joe Castillo, firing two guns, shot nine rounds at both Pedro Espindola and Chuey Hernandez.
Joe Vasquez fired one shotgun round in the direction of both Tijuana cops, and when the shotgun jammed he got off three revolver shots at Pedro Espindola.
Renee Camacho fired five rounds at both of them.
Carlos Chacon, firing two guns, shot once at Chuey Hernandez and five times at Pedro Espindola.
Manny Lopez, as he was falling to the ground, fired three times at Chuey Hernandez.
Pedro Espindola emptied his gun while scrambling back toward the border. Chuey Hernandez got off five rounds before he had the weightless feeling and left his feet.
Nine officers of two countries fired forty-nine rounds of ammunition at each other in the darkness at close range. And when all was said and done, the two who lived south of the imaginary line hadn't the faintest idea why it had happened. And some of the seven who lived north of the imaginary line, after some painful reflection, were not sure if they knew why. They were foredoomed to perform. And they did.
Suddenly, everyone was screaming.
"I'M HIT!"
"Barf! Barf! Barf! Barf! Barf!"
"I'M HIT, GODDAMNIT!"
"CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE."
"I'M HIT, YOU BASTARDS!"
"GET HIM GET GET GET HIM GET HIM!" Incredibly enough, Pedro Espindola was scrambling toward the pipe, up the embankment!
People were cursing, yelling, screaming, ducking, trying to reload weapons. Pedro Espindola was scrambling as though in a dream. Chuey Hernandez was crawling, clawing at the dirt, trying to take himself home. San Diego detectives would find his finger marks in the dust.
Chuey Hernandez would not be playing his cornet for the President of Mexico. Chuey Hernandez, during the screaming and pandemonium immediately following the endless explosion that still echoed in his ears, was following the instincts of all wounded creatures. He was crawling on his belly for home. He crawled exactly six feet. His finger marks were in the soil of his homeland. All but his legs were inside the Republic of Mexico. As he clawed his way home. Then Chuey Hernandez remembers only a body falling hard on him. Someone placed a shotgun at his head and his gun was snatched away. And someone rolled him over on his back and began slapping him across the face and cursing him.
Manny Lopez put the gun of Chuey Hernandez into his belt and handcuffed his own wrist to the wounded Tijuana policeman.
Manny Lopez kept yelling, "Who's hit? Is anybody hit?" Carlos Chacon screamed, "I'm hit in an artery!" Manny Lopez began jerking on Chuey Hernandez, jerking him u
pright, and someone else slapped Chuey Hernandez across the face and Manny Lopez screamed, "You fucking thief!"
And Chuey Hernandez remembers how it confused him. Thief? What does he mean? What does he mean?
"What's going on?" Chuey Hernandez kept repeating. "What's going on?" He kept staring at his handcuffed wrist, disbelieving.
"Don't play dumb, you asshole!" somebody said, and he was slapped again.
Manny Lopez yelled, "Did I get hit or not? What the fuck?" And he started feeling his own body with the hand that wasn't cuffed to Chuey Hernandez, saying, "Somebody check me! I know I got hit!"
Now Chuey Hernandez felt a ferocious ache in his stomach. It was the worst stomachache he ever had and he was being dragged along the ground on that stomach. Then his arm started hurting bad enough to make him cry.
Chuey Hernandez was jerked to his feet and was amazed to see that he could walk. He remembers walking perhaps one hundred meters to some trees. Suddenly he started choking and couldn't breathe and became more terrified. Then someone said, "Pinche robber! I hope you die!" Of all the things that happened that night, the most perplexing to Chuey Hernandez was that later, when the area was swarming with activity, and a helicopter and an ambulance were there, someone leaned over him as he lay on a gurney ready to be put in an ambulance. He couldn't say whether it was the tall one who accompanied him in the ambulance (meaning Ernie Salgado) or the leader (meaning Manny Lopez) or another one. He has a memory of someone slapping him and calling him a robber.
Robber? It was so strange he wanted to laugh and cry. He was having lucid thoughts and he wanted to talk. He thought they were robbers when he went into that gully. No pollo ever behaved like that-ducking in and out of the light beam, not running away, yet not obeying. And now they were calling him a robber? But why? How could it be? If they were policemen, why hadn't they simply said so the first moment he saw them? To Chuey Hernandez none of it made any sense whatsoever. He hadn't any idea at all what they were talking about.
Then the one who was slapping him said, "If our partner dies, you're going to die and rot in hell!"
It was the first time he'd known that one of them had been shot. He had no idea whatever as to the fate of Pedro Espindola or even that he had escaped. He then decided they were all crazy and there was no point trying to talk. It didn't make sense. Or maybe he was crazy!
Carlos Chacon had vivid memories of the massive shootout which Ernie Salgado said sounded like a Vietnam firefight. Carlos remembered emptying one gun but did not remember taking out the other one. He could feel the heat from the muzzle flashes and the lead shavings striking him. And smell the burn of gunpowder. He saw Chuey Hernandez a few feet away firing at him. One of the rounds from Carlos Chacon's gun struck Chuey Hernandez in the Sam Browne, ripped through and entered the side of his body and into the stomach, settling by the navel. Another passed through his arm.
After Chuey Hernandez was down, they mostly fired at the skinny cop who was shooting and backing away. Carlos Chacon felt a shock and went down. Then Pedro Espindola was down and Carlos Chacon clearly saw rounds exploding into the body of Pedro Espindola as he was crawling toward the pipe.
Then Carlos Chacon began screaming: "I'm hit!"
While they were kneeling over Carlos Chacon, tearing his bulletproof vest away, the Tijuana patrol car started up and drove away!
They had been looking for the skinny cop, expecting to find him lying in wait by the pipe, or dead. Then the car left. Was there a third one? The skinny one must be hiding in the pipe waiting to ambush them. Did one of the drunks drive the goddamn car away?
They later discovered that Officer Pedro Espindola, suffering four wounds, three in the back and one in the leg, dragged his body through the drainage pipe, up onto the highway, crawled into the patrol car, and escaped.
The Barfers were learning that Mexican cops were as hard to kill as Mexican bandits. There were some very tough people down there.
Carlos Chacon was on the ground screaming, "DON'T MOVE ME!" And Manny Lopez was on his feet trying to quell the pandemonium by yelling orders.
Tony Puente got on the Handie-Talkie and screamed, "Goddamnit! I can't make it work!"
So Manny Lopez took it and turned it on, allowing Tony to start screaming into it.
Everything was interrupted just then. They heard several sirens approaching. Then they heard dozens of sirens approaching. From the south! The sky was lit for a mile by red and blue siren lights, and the sound of those Tijuana police sirens scared the living hell out of every man.
Then Manny Lopez yelled, "Let's go!"
But there were two wounded men and somebody was trying to get a dressing on the arm of Carlos Chacon, who was yelling about an artery, and Carlos Chacon remembers thinking: If I'm hit in the artery, I'll be dead in three minutes!
And Joe Castillo, who hated Carlos Chacon, wounded or not, remembers thinking: Artery? So what? He's got no blood in his veins, the pussy ' I got shot by him and I wasn't screaming about a goddamn artery. Screaming like a pig!
Then Carlos Chacon yelled "If I start to go, give me mouth-to-mouth!"
And somebody, probably Joe Castillo, yelled back, "Fuck your mouth-to-mouth, you faggot!"
And then everybody-shooters, wounded, jokers, maniacs, all of them-started trying to truck on out, because those blue and white patrol cars, as well as plainclothes cars of the judiciales, were all over that highway. Suddenly they could see nothing but those pale guayabera shirts out there in the darkness. And they heard the sound of thirty men hitting that cyclone fence and they knew that the judiciales were coming! And somebody might soon be drinking soda pop through his fucking nose if he even lived that long! And then they saw clearly in silhouette that one of the judiciales was carrying a Tommy gun!
A Border Patrol helicopter responding to the chaos on the airwaves swooped in, illuminating the whole pack of them huddling there trying to tend to the wounded, and Manny got on the Handie-Talkie and said, "Tell those border patrolmen to turn off the light or I'll shoot the fucking chopper down!"
Except that they weren't going to shoot anything down. They had shot their wad. Everybody had either used up his ammunition or dropped it in the confusion of reloading.
Three Barfers started yelling simultaneously: "I'M OUT A AMMO!"
The wounded were carried, dragged, pushed, pulled, and-with the head of Chuey Hernandez in the painful headlock of Manny Lopez-everyone started running north toward the sound of an ambulance approaching from the substation. Toward Ken Kelly and Robbie Hurt, who were careening over the dirt road in two vehicles, each having what he was sure was his third or fourth heart attack of the month.
While all of this was going on, Joe Vasquez, who had the shotgun that night and had finally gotten it unjammed, was staying closest to the fence, covering the retreat. He was fascinated watching all those cars screaming up the Mexican highway, sliding and skidding to a stop near the hole in the fence.
Within seconds the first dozen uniformed cops hit that cyclone fence. Then the judiciales roared up. Then another patrol car. Then another. Then six patrol cars, traveling two abreast and damn the oncoming traffic! Then half a dozen plainclothes cars containing more judiciales. Then Joe Vasquez saw the judicial with the Tommy gun and he thought: That's it. Time to go.
He turned around and yelled, "That's it! Time to."
He was talking to himself. They, had gone. When the chopper was hovering overhead, lighting them like quail, the noise had obscured all the frantic commands. The rest of them, carrying and dragging Carlos Chacon and Chuey Hernandez, had simply gone.
Big Ugly was left behind. He was all alone. The guayabera shirts were running ahead of the uniformed cops. They were running in his direction with flashlight beams crisscrossing the brush.
There was a surprised border patrolman parked in a jeep on the mesa that night who saw a fierce-looking pollo screaming toward him at a pace that would qualify for the police Olympics.
Joe Vasquez found the Bord
er Patrol on the high point and started waving his badge in the lights, yelling, "Get me out a here!"
The Mexican police began firing, probably at some poor pollos caught in the brush. They were on the radio to the San Diego sheriff's helicopter saying, "Help us. Some bandits shot our men!"
Pedro Espindola never knew until later that Manny and his men were cops. He made it to the hospital still conscious. He survived his four wounds and eventually returned to duty.
Chuey Hernandez suffered two bullet wounds that night. One lodged in the abdominal area; the other passed through his arm. The San Diego crime lab determined that he had been shot by Carlos Chacon. Chuey Hernandez was in the hospital in San Diego for fifteen days. When his wife, Miki, came to see him, she couldn't stop crying. The two of them talked with San Diego police detectives but at first neither could understand why Chuey had been shot. Within a few days she no longer had access to her husband because of rules pertaining to prisoners. She was allowed to visit him during prisoners' visiting hours after he was officially charged with criminal assault. Chuey Hernandez never wanted his mother to know, because she had a serious heart condition. Even though she lived with him, the whole family kept the secret scrupulously. The old woman was told that her son was taken to a San Diego hospital for a hernia operation.
Chuey Hernandez was lucky. His wife was a nurse and could help him when he was released from the hospital. Of course she had to take a leave from her nursing job to tend to her husband during his recuperation at home. Chuey Hernandez also needed a criminal lawyer to defend him aginst the charges in San Diego. The lawyer required $1,550 for his services, but Chuey Hernandez earned only about $45 a week. They were able to borrow the money against their house. According to the banker, the house was worth $3,000. The medical bills and lawyer's fees finally proved overwhelming and Chuey Hernandez lost his house and had to live in a rented house from that day on. With the children and his mother.
Miki Hernandez had to nurse her husband for two months during the time that their world was crumbling. She had considerable hatred for the San Diego police after that.
Lines and Shadows (1984) Page 25