In San Diego, one has a definite sense of living on the line. That line is the international border that separates the affluence of Southern California from the poverty and despair of Tijuana. Every day, people from Mexico and Central America who want to break out of the cycle of Third World deprivation seek to cross the border into the United States; and in the late 1970's, a compassionate San Diego police officer saw how these unfortunate campesinos were being preyed upon by border bandits, and decided to try to do something about it. As Joseph Wambaugh tells it in Lines and Shadows, the result was the formation of a Border Crime Task Force whose members disguised themselves as pollos ("chickens," a slang term for vulnerable undocumented aliens) and walked out into a desert landscape of rattlesnakes and scorpions and tarantulas and cacti, with the goal of decoying robbery-minded border bandits into attacking them. The gambit worked all too well, resulting in many arrests and much positive publicity for the San Diego Police Department, but also in a number of shootings in which both cops and robbers were wounded, and ultimately two people died. Wambaugh, a veteran police officer, writes of the pressures that these police officers face -- prejudice against Mexican-American police officers in a predominantly Anglo police department; heavy drinking in response to constant stress; strained marriages as the celebrity status of these modern "gunslingers" draws groupies. Wambaugh's prose is workmanlike, suitable to the no-nonsense police world that he describes; readers looking for the noir-ish poetry of a Chandler or a Hammett will be disappointed, and readers who are offended by coarse language should most definitely avoid this book. All in all, Wambaugh provides a striking picture of an unusual police experiment that brought into relief the existence of an ongoing problem that no one has yet managed to solve. This book was written over 25 years ago. How many undocumented aliens will try to cross that invisible line in the sand tonight? How many of them will be preyed upon by bandits who are capable of untold cruelty? What officials, either in Mexico or in the United States, are looking out for these poor, vulnerable, stateless people? The answers still seem as difficult to grasp as an invisible line in the sand, or a shadow cast by the moon.
This book details the formation of a special unit created in 1978 in San Diego. The unit's main goal was to help "pollos" (immigrants crossing into the US) stay clear of bandits (men that would rob, rape and harm the pollos they came across).The police officer in charge, Manny Lopez, becomes drunk with the media attention and soon the lines between good and bad blur. The men under his command are afraid to counter Lopez's orders in fear that they may be considered sissies (not the word used, but you get the picture). There are nights of debauchery and relationships become strained between man and wife and commander and officer. An interesting look at border relations in a different time period. As I read, I realized not much has changed in the way of how the US regards immigration and how to deal with the issue. Also, an interesting look at culture and identity and the distinction between Mexicans from the South and those that live just across the imaginary line (and there is a difference). I wouldn't mind reading more by this author. He is a retired police officer and he doesn't hold any punches holding up the mirror to his fellow brothers.
What do You think about Lines And Shadows (1995)?
This is a tragic story of a group of Los Angeles police officers organized and charged with doing the near impossible—protecting illegal aliens from the criminal element after their crossing. The officers were heroic but their efforts came at a huge price, their own lives, well-being, and sanity. While the writing and the story were good, I did not enjoy this book as I have done other true crime by Wambaugh. It is probably due to what I saw as tremendous sacrifices by the officers to do band aid surgery to a problem that should be addressed by a higher level of government.
—Gerald Kinro
I like Wambaugh's true crime because he's so good at teasing out the individual nuances of personality and dysfunction that crop up any time a group is allowed to develop an Us vs. Them mentality without getting too folksy OR too detached. It's a fine line. Basically, in the late 1970s of Southern California, a group of cops set out to curb incidences of bandits preying upon illegal immigrants in the no-man's land just across the US border and essentially replicated the Zimbardo experiment in the wild. Touches upon themes of race, culture, masculine identities, and the cop code. While the personalities involved began to unravel fairly quickly, they set out to firstly put an end to the rape, murder, and assault of illegal immigrants, to secondly catch the smugglers and coyotes themselves, and only as a distant third to put any kind of dent into the flow of illegal immigrants itself. Read this book, and then marvel at how the hell we've managed to move so far backwards over a course of thirty years.
—Mari Stroud
Most of my reading is fiction. Usually the only nonfiction books I read are for book group. I have read Joseph Wambaugh's books in the past and enjoyed them. This time I found it rather hard going--the subject of a separate police unit in San Diego dealing with Mexicans crossing the border as well as 'bandits' who prey upon them is interesting. The members of this unit were well described, but at times I found the reading ponderous. This experiment had a profound effect on all of the members, most of whom were of Mexican descent in order to fit in. It lasted for a certain amount of time, being set up as an experiment.
—Marti
