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Stories about Border Patrol shootings, cage-like waiting areas at a local port of entry, a dynamic drama teacher and a community-centered radio station in Sonora Mexico earned writers from the Nogales International a fistful of accolades Saturday from the Arizona Press Club.
In all, NI journalists past and present took home two first-place prizes, one second-place award, two third-place finishes and two honorable mentions in the non-metro division of the press club’s contest for reporting during 2012. Marisa Gerber, an area native who interned at the NI in the summer of 2010 and then returned to the paper for much of last year, led the way with five total prizes.
The awards came in the categories of Public Safety Reporting, Human Interest Writing, Personality Profile and Arts Writing. And for the second consecutive year, the NI took first and second place in the contest’s Immigration Reporting category.
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Managing editor Jonathan Clark and reporter Curt Prendergast were awarded first place in the immigration category for their combined and sustained coverage of the fatal shooting of a Mexican teenager amid a rock-throwing incident on Oct. 10, 2012. In that case, a Border Patrol agent or agents standing behind the border fence in Nogales, Ariz. repeatedly shot 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez on a sidewalk below in Nogales, Sonora. Since then, the Border Patrol, FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office have refused to offer any details of the investigation into the shooting.
“Undeterred by the U.S. Border Patrol’s stonewalling, Clark uses the state open records law to provide a detailed and expertly written account of a hot-button shooting with big implications, calling into question the actions of the federal agents,” wrote contest judge Sarah Ryley, assistant city editor at the New York Daily News.
“Prendergast does a good job of exploring the issue of deadly force from multiple perspectives, and raises the question of why non-lethal disbursement tools such as pepper balls weren’t used first.”
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Clark took second place in the immigration category with another investigative look at a contested Border Patrol shooting.
Relying on police reports obtained through channels outside the federal government, the story “Agent charged with corruption now at center of civil suit” revealed that Agent Abel Canales, who shot an illegal border crosser near Walker Canyon on Nov. 16, 2010, had been observed taking a bribe for allowing contraband to pass through the I-19 checkpoint more than two years earlier, yet had been left in the field with his gun.
5 recognitions
Gerber, who now works as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, won first place in the Public Safety Reporting category for “Cage-like waiting areas spawn complaints at port,” a story that voiced concerns from border-crossers and civil rights advocates about new waiting facilities at the Mariposa Port of Entry.
“Gerber’s work was compelling, very well-written, and trained a bright light on an inhumane practice,” wrote contest judge Carol Marbin Miller, an enterprise and investigative reporter with The Miami Herald. “The decision of Customs and Border Protection to dismantle the ‘cage’ within days of the story is a testament to Gerber’s fine reporting.”
Gerber also received an honorable mention in the public safety category for “Death puts spotlight on behavioral health center,” a story about the March 11, 2012 murder of 23-year-old Katie Lynn Lemar by her husband Timothy Lemar at a transition home in Nogales where she had been placed by the organization The Living Center.
In the Personality Profile category, Gerber won a third-place prize for “Celia Concannon knows the power of a play,” a feature about the retiring Rio Rico High School drama teacher who used the realities of life on the border to give students opportunities for creative expression.
Gerber also took third place in the Human Interest Writing category for “Radio station in sister city takes a hands-on approach.” For that story, she spent a day with on-air reporters at Radio XENY in Nogales, Sonora as they tried to help a local woman get her dead brother’s body back from law enforcement officials.
In addition, Gerber was awarded an honorable mention in the Arts Reporting category for her coverage of a grass-roots effort to turn a wall on private property in downtown Nogales into a public canvas for young urban artists. In the end, the mural they created was destroyed by the city government.
