U.S. Army Veteran Subjected to Armed Police Raid in Mexico

U.S. Army Veteran Subjected to Armed Police Raid in Mexico

by Hobart Sullivan

Former Army Combat Medic, Lee William Sachs´s luxurious Mexican condominium was literally attacked on Thursday afternoon, January 18 at 16:00 hrs local time when police from the Palacio wielding machine-guns attempted to break down his door at the La Fortaleza Condominiums in La Playas in the resort city of Acapulco Mexico. 

Police were accompanied by a coterie of functionaries from the State Police with hired locksmiths who purported to have this right in order to serve him with civil papers regarding a landlord-tenant dispute that had raged on for the past few months. 

Mr. Sachs, although a graduate of Seattle University with a Masters from P.L.U., neither speaks, reads, writes nor comprehends Spanish and there was no translator except one of his employees who arrived with attorney in tow well after the fact.  Sachs presented to these thugs-for-hire receipts for rent paid to the lawful owner of this condo as well as receipts evidencing lease payments to the Palacio, drawn on the Mexican Federal Bank, BONSEFI.  However he was coerced at gunpoint to tender a redundant payment for last August of $12,500 pesos (approximately $ 12,000 usd) and was given yet another receipt and forced to sign acknowledgment papers that were all Greek to him. 

There was damage to the front-door lock and after leaving en masse (the total number of this crew was in the teens), Sachs discovered a very expensive wris*****ch conspicuously missing.  Admittedly, he did not open the door and was totally uncooperative until this gang resorted to the heavy-handed tactics of attempting chisels, hammers, and anything that Mexicans are so adroit at using when stymied.  During the terrifying 45 minutes in his home at least one policeman kept leveling a Galel or Uzi machine-gun at him while jabbering away in Spanish about Sachs´s girlfriend, his fishtank and the policeman´s unfortunate deportation from the U.S.A. where he was once gainfully employed in the meatpacking industry in Tulsa, OK.
 
This debacle comes on foot of 155 days of landlord harassment, anti-Semitic diatribes, spurious criminal charges of Defamation — In Mexico a Kafkaesque criminal offense (Sachs now must sign-in at the local penitentiary every Friday), rain-damage to an art collection of Boteros as a result of the landlord failing to adhere to full disclosure, illegal confiscation of his automobile and Demandas-upon-Demandas that has cost Sachs a small fortune and consumed all his disposable time during what should have been an enjoyable and restive retirement. 

Pursuant to the Defamation charges against Sachs (under the Code de Napoleon) — these allegedly occurred Saturday, September 2, 2006 — Sachs, an observant Jew and would never have ventured into the landlord´s Pharmacy on the Sabbath, especially after serving notice in July that from there on all rent payments would be rendered to the Clerk of the Court (Justice Palace) due to specific non-performance by the landlord, one Felipe Mendoza, a well-known narcotrafficante in the Acapulco costera area.  As is de riguer in the Republic of Mexico, Senor Mendoza actually underwrote the police remuneration as well as gratuities for all the personnel in accompaniement.   

(the late senator [left] with fellow cronies)

In an unrelated, albeit ironic twist of fate, a fellow resident of the condominium, Deputado (State Senator) Jorge Bajos was recently murdered in the mean streets of Acapulco, also known as Narcopulco, and Sachs does not wish to join the late legislator in the political purgatory he undoubtedly resides in.
 
And in an even further linguina twist of fate, Mr Sachs had purchased Senator Jorge Bajos laptop computer as a chanukah gift to himself.  "Deputado Jorge Bajos had obviously purged all the files but overlooked the harddrive" Mr. Sachs said in a recent interview. 

"Not only are the police uninterested in this fact, but also the media, including but not limited to Televisa, Novedades, El Sur and other yellow journalistic newspapers.

(the late politicians laptop)

Papers were forwarded to Ambassador Tony Garza in Mexico City.  Perversely, the actions of the police seem to be legal, but that does not obviate the fact that they were did not act in a rightful manner.  "The last time anyone pointed a weapon at me was in the U.S. Army.  And it was not a Kodak moment!" said Sachs still upset after the incident.