CHILD'S KILLING SHOCKS TROUBLED MEXICAN BORDER CITY

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - The people of Juarez have grown nearly numb to the
killings and violence that have tormented this border city for years. But
the brutal murder of 9-year-old Ricardo Aquino - bound and killed after he
was kidnapped while playing soccer on May 17 - has even top officials
wondering what has gone wrong in Juarez.

Residents complain that the industrial hub across from El Paso, Texas, has
seen a systematic break down in social values after waves of migrants began
arriving in the 1970s. But a recent rise in drug use appears to have
contributed to a growing culture of violence and lawlessness.

"The people who did this, this was not a thing humans do. This was
something only beasts would do," says Ricardo's mother, Gloria Olivares.

Police say a family acquaintance allegedly set up the kidnapping of the
boy, hoping for 1.5 million pesos (US$150,000) the family couldn't possibly
have raised.

The kidnapping went wrong when one of the investigating agents realized his
cousin was one of the kidnappers and called the man to warn him police were
closing in, prosecutors say. The cousin then allegedly decided to kill the
boy and dump his body in a garbage-strewn lot to hide the evidence.

"Ricardo would have turned 10 on Monday," says Olivares, as she stood,
inconsolable, in her family's home.

Ricardo Aquino

"He wanted to be a musician or a disc jockey," adds his brother,
21-year-old Fernando Aquino.

State anti-kidnapping agent Martin Valenzuela, was ordered held over for
trial on kidnapping charges Tuesday, while four other men - including the
family acquaintance - were ordered to stand trial for kidnapping and
murder. The four reportedly tested positive for drug use, though it remains
unclear if they were using drugs at the time.

That combination - a breakdown in values and drugs - are at the heart of
the problem, says Oscar Valadez, the Chihuahua state prosecutor based in
Ciudad Juarez.

Over the weekend, one man riddled an acquaintance with eight bullets in a
dispute over a 50 peso (US$5) debt - another killing that appears to
involve drugs. And prosecutors have said the murders of at least 93 young
women in the last decade appear to fall into a similar pattern. Federal
investigators have said some of the women may have been killed for their
organs.

"Ciudad Juarez is a violent city, one that has lost its moral values, where
there is a social breakdown," Valadez says. "It's also a city that attracts
significant investment, so that makes it a place vulnerable to crime."

The problem has become so severe that the Mexican army was sent into Juarez
this week to raid the hundreds of small-scale cocaine and heroin shops -
"picaderos" or "needle shops" - that have sprung up in Juarez. Doses of
both drugs are sold for as little as US$1 to US$2.

"We do have a serious crime problem," says city spokesman Ricardo Chavez.
"Due to the tightening of security at the U.S. border, a lot of the drugs
that used to be shipped into the United States are staying here. We have
seen a definite increase in drug use and sales."

But at the school where Ricardo was in the fourth grade, the problem is not
new. Ricardo wasn't even the first pupil at the Mexican Revolution No. 1
primary school to be kidnapped and killed.

In September 2000, 7-year-old Juan Pablo Gomez, a first-grader at the
school, disappeared. Ten months later his body was found buried in the yard
of a neighbor, an alleged child molester.

"Since then, we have been very, very nervous," says principal Ignacio
Hernandez, 48, who remembers a different Juarez before the explosive growth
of the 1970s, when waves of migrants from the rest of Mexico arrived hoping
to eventually make it to the United States. Juarez became an overcrowded
way station and melting pot, "and our values began to disintegrate," he says.

"Both parents have to work because wages at the assembly plants are so low,
and so they leave their children alone and the result is predictable," he
says. "Unfortunately, we are losing our children."

Last year, parents and community groups pitched in to build a cinderblock
wall around the school in a lower middle-class Juarez neighborhood,
replacing the mesh fence that once enclosed it.

"We were tired of people coming here and offering drugs through the fence,
or people lurking around trying to get the attention of the girls,"
Hernandez says.

Gloria Olivares did a lot to protect her child.

"Ricardo knew our telephone numbers, the house address, the cellular phone
numbers," Olivares recalls. "He knew how to ask for help. They just didn't
give him a chance."

Now she is learning another grim lesson.

"Many people are afraid. They are afraid of the police, of how money can
buy justice, so they keep quiet about things. They don't report them,"
Olivares says. "I'm not keeping quiet any more."