By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 12, 2005

CHULA VISTA – Police officer Richard Deomampo didn't know he was facing a suspected associate of a major Mexican drug trafficking group when two men started shooting at him in a busy parking lot.

U.S. authorities learned later that one of the men arrested in the Sept. 28 incident was Edgar Lopez Frausto. Mexican and U.S. law enforcement authorities say Lopez is connected with the Arellano Félix drug cartel based in Tijuana.

No one was injured in the noontime incident, which started when the Chula Vista officer responded to a report of shots being fired at a nearby house. However, the incident illustrates the danger to innocent people when Mexican drug trafficking groups conduct their business in San Diego County neighborhoods.

U.S. law enforcement officials said the Chula Vista area has become a hot spot for such activity over the past 16 months, though most of the cases involve dumped bodies.

"We are seeing an increase because of the power struggles in the drug world. . . . It trickles up this way," said Chula Vista police Sgt. Yvette Roullier, who oversees the department's crimes of violence unit, which includes homicide robbery investigations.

Lopez, 31, and the man he was arrested with, Jorge Salvador Moreno, 35, of National City, are facing several charges including attempted murder, according to court records.

Three men whose decomposing bodies were found in a van parked in Chula Vista in August 2004. They were identified as Tijuana residents Teodulo Espinosa Andrade, 36; Guadalupe Becerra Herrera, 40, and Jaime Colorado Gomez, 36.

 The death of Francisco Javier Olguin Verdugo, 22, of Tijuana. His body, clad only in underwear, was found this year along Heritage Road near Otay Valley Road in Chula Vista on Aug. 5.

 The killing of Ricardo Escobar Luna, 31, who had ties to Tijuana. His body was found wrapped in a blue tarp near a busy Bonita intersection on Aug. 20. The case is being investigated by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

No arrests have been made in connection with the deaths. Autopsy reports for four of the men are sealed and the other report remains incomplete and unavailable, said Rick Poggemeyer, a supervisor with the Medical Examiner's Office. As a result, no information is available on whether the men were tortured, a trademark of drug groups.

It's not clear why the recent cases surfaced in the Chula Vista area. In 2003, the San Diego Police Department had two cases of dumped bodies with suspected links to Mexican drug traffickers, but hasn't encountered anything similar lately, Lt. Kevin Rooney said.

Some Mexican drug traffickers and their families are known to live in South County, attracted to the area's proximity to the border and because they may feel safer there.

Some are aligned with the Arellanos, who have controlled the flow of drugs into Southern California for at least 15 years. Since 2000, Mexican authorities have arrested many of the cartel's top leaders and associates, and the group's geographic influence appears to have waned.

However, Mexican and U.S. law enforcement sources have said privately that the Arellanos remain in control of drug smuggling through Tijuana – even though rivals are attempting to operate without the cartel's permission.

Jan Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the local FBI office, said some of the cases in the Chula Vista area are believed to be the result of rivals lashing back at the Arellanos.

"We believe the battle for control of the Tijuana (corridor) does precipitate violence, and that violence does cross the border," she said.

The violence is posing new challenges to local law enforcement agencies.

"We have always investigated homicides a certain way and this isn't changing the way we do business," Roullier said. But, she added, "we don't have the ability to track and trace and confirm whether a person is involved in one of the cartels."

Roullier said the police department is trying to improve that by collaborating with federal law enforcement agencies and working closely with Mexican law enforcement.

Misha Piastro, a spokesman for the local Drug Enforcement Administration office, said the agency is also aware of the recent cases in the Chula Vista area.

He said many of the victims "have been suspected of having ties to the drug underworld." The motives, he said, are either "the direct result of drug trafficking feuds . . . or over perceived slights or insults."

The September incident occurred in a quiet cul-de-sac of five homes in an upper middle class Chula Vista neighborhood east of Interstate 805 and near Olympic Parkway.

A woman who answered the door at the targeted house referred all questions to her husband. The woman, surrounded by three of her young children, said her husband works in Tijuana, where he owns liquor stores. She said he was at the house at the time of the shooting.

"I don't know anything about it," she said.

The husband, whose name appears in the house's property records, didn't respond to a request for an interview.

Roullier said the homeowner called police for help when men in a red truck started shooting at the house. Deomampo, who was nearby, confronted the suspects in the parking lot of a strip mall near East Palomar Street and Brandywine Avenue.

As shoppers stood by, two men got out of the vehicle and shot at the officer 16 times, hitting the patrol car's windshield and roof, Roullier said.

"He was able to get to the rear of the vehicle . . . but by then they had gotten back into the car and took off," she said.

The encounter happened so quickly that the officer didn't have time to fire back, she said.

Deomampo radioed for help and attempted to pursue the suspects until bullet damage to his tires halted the car, Roullier said. Police arrested Lopez and Moreno a few blocks away, near the Boys & Girls Club, as they attempted to escape. The vehicle carrying the other suspects sped away to Tijuana, where the car was recovered and returned to the United States as evidence, Roullier said.

Roullier said Deomampo, an 11-year-veteran of the police department, was unavailable to comment and on temporary leave.

It's unclear whether Moreno – who has a U.S. criminal record – has connections with Mexican drug cartels.

Lopez's picture appeared last year on an FBI list of people suspected of working for the Arellanos or rival drug groups, local spokeswoman Caldwell said.

Lopez was described on the list as an unidentified suspect, with the nickname "Monkey." Caldwell said Lopez is suspected of being an associate of the Arellanos.