Nemesis Part 1

In everyone's life there is a nemesis, Alberto Parra was mine. Almost from the first day I was hired as the Chief of Police of Columbus, New Mexico, Alberto was a problem to me. Alberto's family were known as Mexican "Mulas", literally mules who back packed marijuana, cocaine and some Mexican brown heroine out of Mexico and into the United States.

The first time I had dealings with Alberto was when in front of a group of his peers I was forced to take him down, handcuff him and take him to jail. The problem with this was that Alberta was a supposed tough guy, and when I arrested him without a lot of fan fare he lost credibility with his friends. To this macho I committed the ultimate insult.

The problem I write of in this story began when I was forced to serve a civil paper on Alberto, a paper he had been dodging for some time. I heard from an informant that Alberto was at a party with a large group of teenagers around, and I know he thought that he was untouchable. I drove up to the group of teenagers at a private residence in Columbus, many of whom I knew well and when I got out of my car I told the group to dispurse, or I would be contacting their parents. Like magic the majority of the crowd vanished into the surrounding darkness the only group left was Alberto and his henchmen all men in their twenties. Alberto decided to use this opportunity to berate me in front of his henchmen, but I walked up to him and handed him the legal document stating, "You've been served!" and turned to leave.

Alberto made the first of many mistakes he made that night, when he ran up behind me and punched me in the back of the head. His forward momentum threw him forward towards me and I was able to spin around behind him, place him in an armbar and restrain him, all the while his henchmen began crowding towards me with the intent of taking me down. I pulled my pistol from it's holster with my left hand, held Alberto around the neck with my right arm and ordered everyone back. Wisely they complyed. I then backed up to the rear door of my patrol car dragging Alberto with me, opened the door and threw him onto them back seat not having time to cuff him.

I hurriedly entered the drivers seat of my car and throwing the car into reverse spun backwards out of the gravel driveway of the house where the party was taking place, just as small rocks being wielded by Alberto's henchmen began raining down on my car's windshiled. As I sped down the steet away from the location of the party, in my rearview mirror I saw that I was being followed by three four wheel drive pickup from the party. I decided to travel to the United States Port of Entry three mile south of my location where I could depend upon backup from the Customs and Immigrations official on duty there.

Looking in the rear view mirror I saw Alberto rising up from the seat and it was then I realized that I must have choked him out when I had him by the throat with my arm bar. He began to scream and beat on the cage between us and then beat on the windows of the car with his fists trying to break the glass and escape. In the mean time I was still being chased by his loyal henchmen and I made the three mile trip to the port in record time.

As I reached the border gate into Mexico, I was required to make a left hand u-turn to return into the port of entry where my backup was located. While I was making this turn I heard the back door of my car open up and saw Alberto exit my car and run through the Mexican Border Gate into Mexico. My patrol car was new and when I first set it up I had disconnected the inside door handles so that the door could not open from the inside, but did not disconnect the rear window handle which allowed Alberto to wind down the rear window, reach through the opening and open the door from the outside.

I stopped my car, exited it quickly and started after Alberto. He was standing next to an Aduana Officer (Mexican Immigation official) laughing at me and telling the officer to shoot me. The Aduana Officer pulled his side arm and pointed it at me as he was told by a no good outlaw. I pulled my pistol and held my gun on Alberto and the officer. They standing in Mexico, me standing in the United States. The Aduana Officer screamed at me to drop my gun. I refused and told him to let me have Alberto. We were involved in the well known, "Mexican Stand off". Suddenly I heard shouting from the Mexican side of the border and out of the darkness appeared my friend, the Commandante of the Palomas Aduana Office Ignacio Cano screaming at the Aduana Officer with his gun on me to holster his weapon.

When the Aduana Officer complied with Cano's instructions, I holstered mine. During the excitement Alberto simply receded back into the shadows and was gone. The very excited and embarrassed Commandante Cano demanded to know what was going on, and so I explained to him what happened. He began dressing his officer down right in front of me, and relieved him of his post immediately, all the while apologizing to me profusely explaining that the officer who drew down on me was new and didn't know any better. He apologized that Alberto escaped from me, but I knew that Alberto would be back and when he re-crossed the border back into the USA I would be waiting for him. (To be continued)