Mayor John Cook is speaking out to calm people's fears. He said in light of Saturday's gun battle that sent bullets across the border and into El Paso, he stayed away from the border to let law enforcement do its job.
"The chief and i watched karate tournaments while this was going on.."}
Cook says he and El Paso police chief, Greg Allen, were confident that law enforcement had the situation under control Saturday.
"We got the test of that communication system and it worked very well," Cook said. But if this was a test, he considers it a no-brainer.
"This is just the consequence of living on a very dangerous border at the time," he said.
But some say that in order to put an end to the spillover violence in El Paso, we need to start by closing off the border completely. Something that Cook says would do more harm than good.
"It would impact employment on this side of the border as well as the other side of the border," he said. "And its not going to stop the illegal flow of drugs."
Besides, he said, this isn't the first time bullets have sprayed over into El Paso. From the window in his office, Cook points to the old laundry building where the bullet holes are a historical marker of the Mexican Revolution.
"The people used to go sit on top of the roof of that building and drink beer and watch the Revolution happening in Mexico," he said.
Well, it may be a very different world compared to a hundred years ago, but Cook's message is that he's not too worried. He wasn't even alarmed when his family took a stroll along the border after the shots were fired Saturday.
"You know its probably more dangerous riding a motorcycle than it is walking along the border," he said. "And I did ride my motorcycle to work today."
Daredevil or not, Cook does say he no longer spends his Sundays shopping in Juarez - and has this message.
"Don't go to Mexico unless you really have to, he said. "It's not worth the risk of going over there."
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