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Stories by Bob McPhail (RIP)

Threatened to cut off head of U.S. Rep. Gabbard (D-Hawaii)

Baja California police have captured a U.S. citizen on the lam from the FBI for allegedly threatening to decapitate a congresswoman from Hawaii. Agents of the fugitive unit of the Policia Estatal Preventiva (State Preventive …

September 2, 2013
Homeless move to Tijuana’s beach

It was just a few weeks ago that federal, state and city officials in Tijuana swept through the concrete river channel known as El Bordo and dislodged hundreds of indigents, who had made the area …

August 31, 2013
Medicine — the healthy side of Baja tourism

About 750,000 Americans a year visit Baja California for medical care, according to Karim Chalita Rodríguez, president of a medical trade group that goes by the name of Clúster Médico Dental y Hospitalario de Baja …

August 23, 2013
Paid parking lots may go away in Tijuana

Business leaders in Tijuana say they will ask outgoing Baja California governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán this week to veto a bill that would abolish paid parking at shopping centers. "It [paid parking] is a …

August 19, 2013
Gloria Trevi concert expected to snarl Tijuana traffic

City officials are predicting a traffic nightmare this weekend in Playas de Tijuana and surrounding neighborhoods as more than 45,000 people are expected to attend a free concert by Gloria Trevi, "the supreme diva of …

August 16, 2013
Southern Mexicans flock to San Ysidro and Otay

Hundreds of Mexicans fleeing the increasingly lawless state of Michoacán have sought asylum at the San Ysidro and Otay ports of entry this week, an anonymous source has told the Baja California daily El Mexicano. …

Tijuana Walmart construction project halted

Tijuana city officials have ordered a temporary halt to construction of a Walmart store in Playas de Tijuana after several community groups objected to the way contractors were disposing of debris as they cleared land …

August 5, 2013
Close, but San Quintín won’t become a city

It looks like San Quintín won't become Baja California's newest city after all — or at least not anytime soon. Baja California governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millan has vetoed a measure that would have made …

August 1, 2013
Tijuana officials prepare to replace Kumeyaay statue

It will cost Tijuana about $20,000 to repair a severely damaged statue honoring an indigenous Baja California tribe, according to the city's assistant director of urban maintenance. The bronze statue dedicated to the Kumeyaay tribe …

July 29, 2013
Tijuana offers safe transportation for women

The city of Tijuana this week launched a limited special municipal bus service to provide secure transportation for women traveling alone or with children and for the elderly of either gender. The pink line began …

July 24, 2013
State Department’s recent travel advisory rankles Tijuana mayor

The U.S. State Department has just issued its most recent advisory for U.S. citizens contemplating travel to Baja California, prompting an angry response from Tijuana mayor Carlos Bustamante. The advisory, issued on Friday, July 12, …

Vote recount in Baja elections changes nothing

Despite initial claims to the contrary, it appears Baja California's July 7 elections were fair and clean — and the final vote tally seems to prove it. Over the weekend, Fernando Castro Trenti, the candidate …

July 16, 2013
Tijuana plastic-surgery doctors tighten up image

In an attempt to bolster public confidence in the practice of plastic surgery in Baja California, the state's secretary of health has published a list of certified plastic surgeons on its official website, saludbc.gob.mx. The …

San Quintín, Baja’s newest city

San Quintín, a bucolic beachfront community about 185 miles south of the international border, will apparently become Baja California's sixth officially recognized municipality. By a 23-0 vote on June 28, the state legislature approved a …

July 5, 2013
Tijuana orphanages close, children hit streets

More children are being abandoned on the streets of Tijuana to fend for themselves because nearly half the city's orphanages have closed during the past few years, according to the director of an orphanage specializing …

July 2, 2013
False report of gunfire at Tijuana kindergarten

Several youngsters were injured — one seriously enough to require hospitalization — when false reports of imminent gunfire outside a Tijuana kindergarten caused parents, teachers, and children to run for cover. The incident occurred at …

June 26, 2013
Cockfight operation shut down in Tijuana

Tijuana police arrested 15 people and seized 15 roosters after raiding a clandestine cockfighting ring in the city's Niño Artillero neighborhood. According to accounts in several Tijuana newspapers, officers were summoned to the scene around …

June 21, 2013
Tijuana Bike Fest welcomed by Baja tourism secretary

As many as 8000 motorcyclists are expected to converge this weekend at the Plaza Monumental bullring in Playas de Tijuana for the third Tijuana Bike Fest. The three-day event is scheduled to get under way …

June 13, 2013
Tijuana trucking disasters facilitated by residents

Residents of a modest Tijuana neighborhood are as much to blame as the out-of-control tractor-trailer trucks that have repeatedly damaged or destroyed homes, wrecked cars, and claimed at least one life during the past two …

June 12, 2013
Extreme poverty on the increase in Tijuana

Growing unemployment, persistent under-employment, and a steady influx of deportations from the U.S. have left the Catholic Church in Tijuana hard-pressed to meet the needs of the poor who turn to it for help, according …

June 5, 2013
Tijuana busload of student passengers robbed at gunpoint

Three armed thieves boarded a Tijuana city bus bound for an outlying campus of the Autonomous University of Baja California on Tuesday, May 21, and robbed about 50 terrified passengers, most of them students. The …

May 23, 2013
Bootleggers busted making bucks off Mexican Olympics

Late last month, Tijuana hoteliers and restaurateurs were celebrating a respite from generally bleak economic circumstances when the Mexican National Olympics got under way in Baja California. Authorities estimated that hotel occupancy would reach 90 …

May 21, 2013
Robbery suspect caught for Tijuana police

Angry business owners came to the rescue of the victims of a robbery in downtown Tijuana on May 15, pummeling an alleged thief on the face and head and holding him down until police arrived. …

May 19, 2013
Tijuana curio shops struggle to stay in business

The once-booming curio business on Tijuana's Avenida Revolución has dwindled to a trickle as the tastes of tourists who still visit what was once known as "the most traveled avenue in the world" have shifted, …

Churro vendor calls the law on Tijuana policeman

Tijuana police have arrested one of their own for allegedly extorting money from a woman trying to make a living by selling churros on a well-traveled public sidewalk in the eastern part of the city, …

May 10, 2013
Explosions and fire erupt at Tijuana warehouse

A fire at a Tijuana warehouse for industrial wastes set off several small explosions and led to the evacuation of several nearby maquiladoras and a day-care center for factory workers on the afternoon of April …

April 25, 2013
A different sort of Tijuana kidnapping

Three Tijuana men have landed in jail on suspicion of kidnapping after they allegedly bound the hands and feet of a would-be patient and held him down in the back of a pickup en route …

April 22, 2013
Mexican public servants watch porn on the job

More than a third of government workers in Baja California are using their office computers to access pornography while at work, the Tijuana daily El Mexicano reports. Citing a study conducted in the Mexican state …

April 17, 2013
Battery thieves caught in downtown Tijuana

About a year ago, a good friend in Tijuana took his two young sons to a taco stand for a mid-morning meal. When he returned to his mini-van about 15 minutes later, he discovered that …

Wallet stolen during Zona Norte tryst

An American in search of some pay-for-play sex in Tijuana on Good Friday inadvertently led police to a man pimping out teenaged girls after the American's wallet was stolen by a 13-year-old prostitute. In a …

April 1, 2013
Stolen gasoline sold from vacant lot

An anonymous tip from a caller fearing an "explosion with catastrophic consequences" led to the arrest of four men in Tijuana for allegedly storing stolen gasoline in a residential neighborhood and selling it on nearby …

March 29, 2013
Baja California economy suffers for lack of northern visitors

Baja California residents spend three times more money in the U.S. than do Americans visiting south of the border, according to Armando Rogelio Lara Valle, the director of Baja California's planning and development committee. According …

Rogue plumber caught in the act in Tijuana

A man allegedly posing as an employee of the state water agency was arrested in Tijuana on Sunday, March 17, after one of his victims noted water spewing from a meter in front of his …

March 19, 2013
Sheriff’s department patrols Encinitas for alcohol violators

Sheriff's deputies and state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents arrested 19 people in a weekend crackdown in Encinitas. In a news release issued at 4 a.m. on Sunday, March 17, the sheriff's department said it had …

March 18, 2013
Electrical outage affects 150,000 Baja residents

A bizarre crime that claimed the life of an unidentified man who was apparently trying to steal electrical equipment from transmission towers east of Tijuana left the 65,000 residents of Tecate without power for more …

Alleged wig-wearing thief captured in Tijuana

Tijuana police say they arrested a man who allegedly disguised himself as a woman to steal from various businesses in the San Antonio de Los Buenos neighborhood. Officers captured 27-year-old Brian Roldán Cedillo at around …

March 7, 2013
Bribery crackdown continues in Tijuana

The longtime practice of offering Tijuana cops a little cash to buy your way out of a legal jam could now land you in jail. In a March 2 press release, the city's Department of …

March 4, 2013
Tijuana resident finds magnetized pot parcels under car

The fifth case so far this year of a so-called "blind mule" was discovered on Thursday, February 28, in the Xicoténcatl Leyva Mortera neighborhood of Tijuana, police said in a press release. The term "blind …

March 2, 2013
Brooms and rocks don’t settle squabble in Tijuana

A neighborhood brawl erupted Saturday, February 23, in Tijuana's Villas del Campo neighborhood after a woman swatted a child with a broom, leading to the arrest of five people. The affray began in the afternoon, …

February 26, 2013
Would-be pimp slapped down by Tijuana police

Police officers chased down and arrested a man on a downtown Tijuana street on Monday, February 18, after a young prostitute told them a customer had beaten and robbed her at a nearby hotel. In …

February 21, 2013
Tijuana police catch thief — the alleged victim did it

Tijuana's network of downtown police cameras proved to be the downfall for a 21-year-old woman and her male accomplice after she reported she had been robbed at knifepoint outside a downtown bank while trying to …

February 19, 2013
Alleged bus thief run over by bus in Tijuana

Minutes after pistol-whipping a bus driver unconscious, an alleged thief was run over by the same bus he had just robbed in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood of the city, the Tijuana daily Frontera reports. The …

January 4, 2013
The Disobedient Father

A renegade priest who has refused to give up his Rosarito Beach parish says he has filed a criminal complaint of robbery against the archbishop of Tijuana, the Tijuana daily Frontera reports. Father Raymundo Figueroa …

June 22, 2010
The Last Trick

Authorities have arrested three Tijuana teenagers for allegedly killing a man who refused to pay a prostitute for services, the Baja California attorney general said in a statement issued on Tuesday, October 6. Sulivan Ibarra …

October 7, 2009
Killed for Dollars

As 18-year-old José de Jesús Lamas Herrera walked along Virgo Street on June 28 in Tijuana’s Colonia Reacomodo Sánchez Taboada, someone walked up to him, pulled out a pistol, and shot him dead. Authorities now …

October 3, 2009
Tow Yard Tussle

A Tijuana man ended up in police custody after he allegedly went to a towing company’s impound yard on Tuesday night, September 29, and forcibly reclaimed his cherry-colored Ford. Employees of Zabad Towing said the …

October 2, 2009
No Nonsense Padre

A priest and a sacristan fought off and subdued a would-be robber at María Madre de la Iglesia parish in Tijuana’s Colonia Jardines del Rubí neighborhood on Wednesday night, September 30, according to a municipal …

October 2, 2009
Porn Peddler in the Parque

An alleged sex offender on the lam from California since 2007 was captured by Baja California state police early Wednesday morning, September 30, in front of Parque de la Amistad in Tijuana’s Mesa de Otay …

October 1, 2009
Cabs vs. Coach

After more than 30 years, the Mexicoach shuttle bus to and from downtown Tijuana to San Ysidro is threatening to end service to the international border because Yellow Cab drivers in Tijuana are allegedly vandalizing …

September 21, 2009
Home Is Where Cheap Rent Is

“The loss of employment in the United States and the impossibility of paying rents over a thousand dollars a month has prompted many families to change their residence to Tijuana, where they can pay rents …

September 20, 2009

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