Monday, March 14, 2011

Rocky Times in Rocky Point

Posted By on Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 3:20 PM

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Just in time for Spring Break: Ray Stern of Phoenix New Times delivers a dispatch from Rocky Point:

The town's boosters, condo owners, real estate officials, store owners, taco sellers, ATV renters, and residents are desperate for business, and they want people to believe the town of 50,000 is "safe." They want to talk about relative safety, how Sonora is the least violent state in Mexico and why major drug cartel activity seems to skip over the town.

No wonder, then, that Rocky Pointers don't want to chat about the August shooting of a tourist in the popular Malecon portion of the town's Old Port marina.

Asking around about it, New Times was told by several businesspeople that they weren't aware of the murder. Others misdirected reporters, saying it did occur, just not where New Times had been told it happened.

"Take good pictures, tell a good story," urges one man at a roadside food stand.

"You're digging shit up so nobody comes here," says another, miffed at the questions. "We need people to come!"

Then this disturbing follow-up from Gregory Pratt:


A Rocky Point, Mexico man was murdered in a local hospital at the start of Spring Break last Saturday, after gunmen failed to kill him in a high-speed chase through the streets, sources confirm to New Times.

Javier Celaya Vega, 21, was driving a white 2004 GMC Sierra through the city about 4:30 p.m. Saturday when assassins opened fire on his car, pumping 35 rounds into his vehicle. Responding officers found no one inside the truck, so they searched the surrounding area and found Vega wounded, but alive.

Officers took him to the general hospital in Las Brisas del Golfo, but gunmen with AK-47s showed up shortly after to finish him off — the assassins shot him four times in the emergency room and nine times overall.

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