Confidential File

If Stomach's Strong, Visit Tijuana Prison

Robert
Petersen, a slightly built 18-year old kid from Belmont, Cal., was
released from Mexico's La Mesa State Prison, near Tijuana, this week.

He'd
been there for nearly 14 months. His freedom came in the form of a
conditional release after his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Petersen,
paid Mexican authorities 8,000 pesos ($640 U.S. currency) bail.

Last
week, I detailed the strange circumstances surrounding the boy's arrest
in April, 1958. He was charged with stealing an automobile.

In
spite of strong evidence and other witnesses' statements to support his
claim that he had rented the car from a Tijuana cabdriver to go to San
Diego, and in spite of the fact that he himself returned the vehicle to
the border city, he was found guilty (after spending a year in prison
awaiting a trial which took place without his knowledge) and handed a
four-year sentence.

Finally, last week, the Baja California Court of Appeals came up with a favorable ruling on his case.

But
his actual release was made possible through donations — mostly
anonymous — sent to his parents, who had already exhausted their funds
in attorney's fees, after his plight was publicized here.

Yesterday, I listened to the kid's story of his stay at La Mesa.

It was a chiller — real horror-story stuff.

That such a place could exist a few miles from the United States isn't possible.

But it does exist.

In
fact, it's waiting just south of the border for any American —
juvenile or adult — who wants to take his chances with Mexican justice.

These are some of Robert Petersen's observations after 14 months of enduring a living hell:

The prison, with a current population of approximately 700, is nearly completely prisoner-controlled.

Heroin, marijuana, tequila, beer and prostitutes all are readily available if you've got the money.

Stiletto-like knives, fashioned from steel bed frames, are practically a part of a prisoner's standard uniform.

Petersen
got one in the back while he was sleeping one night. And, as was the
case when he was slashed, variously, on both arms and on the side, he
received no medical attention.

"I was the youngest guy there," he told me. "I was a little guy. They seemed to like to have fights with me."

The boy weighed 115 pounds and stands just over 5 feet tall.
 
When
his parents sent him money, it was immediately requisitioned by the
other prisoners. The same with his clothes. He couldn't even take them
off for his allotted weekly cold shower.

"They even took the family pictures that my mother sent me," he said.

It was Petersen's estimate that 90 percent of the prisoners used marijuana regularly, and 70 percent used heroin.

One of the chief guards had the narcotics and liquor concession. He'd bring it in by the bagful.

Prostitutes lined up to get in on visitors' day. They charged from 50 cents up, and split their take with the guards.

The kid personally witnessed two murders in prison, and watched as another two men died from narcotics.

I
won't bother to repeat his description of the jail menu. But, there
again, those with money and the power to protect it could havefilet mignon.

Petersen
got occasional scraps from some of the richer, more influential
prisoners by washing their dishes, serving as their personal lackey.

He slept on the concrete floor the entire time he was there

Adventure in an Exotic Clime

Then,
there was his seven-day confinement in a pitch-black hole called
solitary. The floor, hosed out quarter-annually, was caked with
excrement. The prisoners, not the guards, sentence you to solitary.

When they finally dragged Bob Petersen out, he was paralyzed from the waist down.

You want more details on the kid's extended excursion to Tijuana?

There's more. Lot's more. But I guess the above will give you an idea of what a pleasant outing it can turn into.

It doesn't read as poetically as the travel folders. But still, it might be an idea to let your own teen-agers browse over it before they cross the border for a little fun.