Not often does a bishop give a sermon in Nogales, Sonora. Not often does a city experience an outbreak in drug violence that includes murders in public, shootouts with police and even a political assassination.On Nov. 7, Bishop José Ulises Macias made a three-hour trip from Hermosillo, Sonora, to address the problem. Flanked by priests from every parish in town, he spoke to parishioners in Spanish at the Santuario Catholic Church.

“The key is very simple,” he said. “We become violent because we are egotists.”

Before the violence, the church often filled to overflowing for special masses. During the bishop’s sermon, a few pews in the back were empty.

Fear of violence has kept residents from leaving their homes and tourists from visiting Nogales. The U.S. State Department released an alert Oct. 14 warning about the dangers of crossing on foot. Some tourists still visit and feel safe from harm, while some people avoid the city.

“I’ve heard very bad things,” Pima Community College student Blanca Contreras said in Spanish. She is enrolled in an English as a Second Language class.

Contreras drives regularly to her hometown of Hermosillo, Sonora. She used to pass through Nogales, but now bypasses the town on a periphery highway, paying a toll of about $3 each time.

Fellow ESL student Gloria Lopez grew up in Nogales, Sonora, and many of her relatives still live there. Her orthodontist’s office is located in the tourist district, so she walks to appointments from the border. For other visits, she drives.

“I still keep on crossing,” she said in a Spanish-language interview. “It [the violence] is not as bad by the border. It is more towards the center of town.”

Her mother-in-law calls to tell her about shootings. Her children are afraid to cross because they are told at school that Nogales has too much violence.

Nogales is secure
Alejandro Padilla drives a taxi in Nogales, Sonora, for a living.

“All of Nogales is secure,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “It’s not as bad as they say.”

Padilla said he hasn’t witnessed any incidents in Nogales but did see the commotion Nov. 2 after Sonora’s state police commander was assassinated. Gunmen ambushed the commander as he entered a hotel in central Nogales, outside of the tourist area.

Lucero Salazar Cruz, a Nogales, Sonora, police spokeswoman, said the city is secure, noting the city added 32 new tourist police to the commercial sector near the border in October. She said the added police had been slated to arrive regardless of the security situation and were not added in response to the violence.

“We would like to tell the tourists that they can come comfortably to Nogales, with no worries,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “There have been some modifications downtown, to project a better image of the municipality.”

Salazar Cruz said one killing was reported in the commercial sector when two men entered a shop. The two got into an argument, and one man shot the other. He was arrested at the scene.

There have been no threats to, or incidents involving, tourists, she said.

Business is suffering
Ana Gastellum owns Ana’s, a curio shop in Nogales, Sonora. She estimated that 90 percent of her clientele is American.

“I am not a trafficker, and that’s why they’re not going after me; if you are one, then, yeah, protect yourself,” she said in Spanish. “But if you aren’t a trafficker, then of course they’re not going to go after you.”

Gastellum said U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors tell tourists to walk only two blocks south. Her shop is on the third block.

She closed two other stores she owned after her businesses suffered a 60 percent drop in revenue compared to 2007. She estimated half of the business lost is because of the economy and the other half is because of bad publicity.

By comparison, Ana Centeno, who owns Casa Mayo de Mexico in Tubac, Ariz., said she has had a 20 to 30 percent drop in business from last year and attributes it solely to the economy. Her store is similar to curio stores in Mexico, but she mostly sells interior design products and not souvenirs.

About 10 percent of her shoppers lately say they are shopping in Tubac because they don’t want to cross into Mexico, Centeno said.

During a recent trip to Nogales, Maria Hernandez, an American from Hereford, Ariz., and her 13-year-old son, Dominic, parked their car in the United States and crossed the border into Mexico on foot. They visit every couple of months. This time, they came for prescription drugs and milagros, small religious charms.

“We’ve noticed an increased police presence, but Nogales has always had a very strong police presence in the tourist district,” Hernandez said. “So, as long as [we] stay in the tourist district, I feel fine.”

Moises Gutierrez owns a shop, Paraiso Curios, that his father opened in 1980. It sits in a narrow walkway on the second block south of the border.

“The tourists come happy,” he said in Spanish. “They’re not scared.”

New tourist police
Gutierrez spoke highly of the new tourist police, saying they are well-educated and kind. “As soon as they arrived, they introduced themselves,” he said.

Around a corner, two tourist police officers patrolled the area. They shook hands with shop owners and stopped to talk to people on the street.

Later, in front of Gutierrez’s shop, the officers stopped a man dressed in ragged clothes who was pushing a cart with a garbage can in it. The man tapped the can two times, and each time a mouse scurried out.

A nearby shop owner shrieked as officer Jesus Franco tried to stomp one of the mice.

The other officer, Edgar David Ramirez Quezada, told the man to leave and said they didn’t want to see him in the tourist district again. The man left.

Ramirez Quesada said he wants tourists to feel comfortable.

“We are doing things the way they should be done,” he said in Spanish.