Back in the 70's, I lived just north of 51^st Street in one of those older neighborhoods with ordinary unassuming houses, unlike the Hyde Park mansions to our south.  I had a neighbor that I liked very much named Tillie.   We both lived on Zennia Street.  She was 75 years old, very friendly and spry.  She rode her bicycle everywhere  - to the store, errands around the neighborhood, for exercise and neighborly visits.  She had both a beautiful and plentiful flower and vegetable garden, the bounty of which she generously shared with all her neighbors.

An accomplished professional drapery maker, she was often found in her workroom meticulously sewing custom drapes.  Every time an airplane flew into Robert Mueller Airport her flock of guinea hens went crazy and provided hours of entertainment for my cat.  She was originally from Austria- still spoke with a heavy accent -and had met her husband after WWII.   They moved down here to his home state and started a family.

As we talked one evening, I asked her about the war.....where she had lived, what she had done, how she had managed to make her way over here.  She quietly informed me that she had been a Nazi.   Stunned, I wanted to know more....how this friendly little homemaker could have taken on the role of being a Nazi in the face of all that carnage and evil and how so many people could have played a part in the holocaust. 

She explained how things happened gradually over time.

First came the propaganda that many people rallied around.  She told of how the Jews became an easy target for many people to vilify.  The communal frustration about the economy and their place in society became focused on this enemy.  Her fellow citizens were complacent to what was happening just beyond their border and eventually he arrived at their doorstep, Hitler himself.  She explained that if she had not joined the Nazi's when she was pressed into service, it meant certain death or punishment.  She was eventually stationed in Norway at a shipyard and given the task of bookkeeping.  During her entire deployment, she lived in fear that the Allies would discover and bomb the munitions depot that was hidden in a forest just beside the port.  That never came to pass or I might not have had a chance to know who she was and the stories she told.

I was reminded of this after watching the BBC video on Mexico's Drug War. 

[ click here to watch the You Tube version with 7 parts Mexico's Drug War ]

We are hearing and seeing the carnage on the news. . . . . . tens of thousands killed over the recent years, the disappearance of unknown numbers, the threats and actual acts of violence everywhere, the "stew maker" who has confessed to liquefying over 300 bodies in acid and dumping the residue in a compound.  This atrocity was done on behalf of drug lords in order to hide the bodies of people who had been executed.  The country is dissolving into a chaotic drug war and Juarez is just on the other side of the Texas border from El Paso.

I hope you make the time to watch this gripping video.  I am struck by the similarities in how illegal aliens are being treated now in Arizona and how this is not too different from how it all started with the treatment of Jews in Germany.  We are starting to hear almost weekly of new atrocities being discovered perpetrated in the name of the drug lords.

In Mexico, entire towns enjoy the protection and affluence of the drug industry.  They thrive in the shadow of the hills where marijuana crops are harvested and supply a great percentage of what is consumed in the United States.  Cocaine is funneled through here as well from Columbia.Their local economies are intertwined with the illegal drug trade.

People can be swayed by the promise of money and power to do many unspeakable things the least of which includes ignoring and looking away from the evil events around them. 

Dr. Michael Lauderdale, professor of Sociology at UT and current Chair of the Public Safety Commission, has remarked to me in a recent email . . . .

"[The video] illustrates several important aspects and is important to watch as it illustrates the war next door. It is graphic, chilling and depressing with Juarez being at the center of the series featuring a police cadet graduation there at its conclusion. How different what these cadets must face as compared to our last APD class this spring. This chaos was unthinkable two decades ago, maybe even a decade ago. Every city in Texas, every city in the Southwest must ask what is next and how does it affect us."  

At the Public Safety Commission meeting in April, I listened to representatives from the DEA, FBI and DPS outline how Austin is now known to be a hub of activity for this drug connection.  The families of some of these cartels are starting to move over here to the United States to escape the wrath of rival gangs.  It is believed that Austin is a hub for wholesale distribution of drugs, a staging area where shipments are sent to many other parts of the United States and beyond. 

Over the next few months during the upcoming budget cycle which ends in September, our City Council will consider many things that we will pay for with our scarce tax dollars.  I will be lobbying each Council member to address the need for greater staffing at APD.   I encourage each of you who care about something more than just your immediate neighborhood to write your Council Members, the Public Safety Commission and the City Managers Office.  Let them know of your concern about our increase in crime since 2008.  We do not wish to become complacent about this recent increase and just accept this degradation of our quality of life.  We want a more visible presence of patrols and detectives to work on solving these crimes.  And, more importantly,  we want to be prepared for whatever the future may bring.

At the May 27^th City Council meeting, the signing of an Interlocal Agreement with 10 other counties or law enforcement agencies to develop the Fusion Center, more commonly known as the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, was approved.  This will enable APD to work more closely with other agencies across the state and the nation in sharing information and allowing their computer systems to 'talk' to each other.  This was an important milestone and I commend each Council Member who understood the importance and significance that the ARIC will have for the future of our city.