Investigators have hands full
with four murder cases


Investigators were at the scene of what appears to be a murder-suicide in Guápiles Thursday night as the Judicial Investigating Organization logged its fourth murder for the day. Agents said that a woman was killed and her boyfriend is suspected of taking his own life in the latest crime.

Agents gave this summary of other murders Thursday:

• A 43-year-old man with the last name of Ortiz died in Hospital México Thursday after being shot at least three times in Santa Cruz. The case is believed to be the result of a personal dispute. Ortiz received the fatal bullets while he was parking his car near the Catholic church in Cartagena.

• A 19-year-old man died at Hospital Calderón Guardia Thursday morning. He was identified by the last name of Acevedo. He suffered a bullet wound in the back that he received in Purral de Goicoechea. He was shot down on a public street.

• A male nurse at Hospital Monseñor Sanabria in Puntarenas was shot down while he was riding his bike to work Thursday afternoon.  He was shot three times in the back not far from the hospital, where he died minutes later. Agents are investigating the possibility that he was killed for his bike.

Agents detained two murder suspects Thursday. The first was a 25-year-old Jamaican who faces judicial action in the death April 3 of a 34-year-old man with the last name of Robertson outside a bar in Calle Blancos, Goicoechea. The man, identified by the Poder Judicial with the last name of  Jermaine, was detained at his home in Residencial Bosques de Doña Rosa in Cariari, Heredia, said the Judicial Investigating Organization.

Jermaine is believed linked to the band of his fellow countrymen who have been jailed in the last three weeks. The victim, identified by the Poder Judicial by the last name of  Arkics, also was believed to be a countryman. Agents said they found a submachinegun and 500 rounds of ammunition for an AK-47 in the 6 a.m. raid.

Murder investigators also detained a 20-year-old man for the death of a soccer star that took placed Sept. 11 in Parque de la Paz. He is the second to be held for the crime. The victim, identified by the last name of Alfaro, was shot in the stomach by two men who took his mountain bike in the daylight crime. The case received a lot of publicity because Alfaro played for the Barrio México soccer team and because the park is popular with San José residents.

Get rid of toll booths
and regulate bus stops

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I was pleased to read that Costa Rica intends to stand by its commitment to reduce its "carbon footprint."  I find it ironic, however, that Costa Rica continues to erect toll booths that cause motorists to burn more fuel in slowing to a stop, waiting while engines idle, and accelerate to their previous speeds. 

While there has been much complaining about the increased price of the tolls (to about $ 0.57), nothing has been said regarding the environmental cost due to the increased emissions or the increase in oil dependency due to the increased amount of fuel burned unnecessarily at toll booths over the amount that would have been burned if drivers had cruised through the area.  Costa Rica should tear down the toll booths and repay whatever party benefits from them, if it wants to be serious about reducing the carbon footprint.

Probably the single worst impediment to smooth traffic flow, and the single most frustrating factor related to driving in Costa Rica, is the fleet of smoke-belching buses that clog the major roadways.  Certainly, the buses, by transporting large numbers of non-drivers, do a great service to the people who depend upon them and to the country's environmental goals, and should not be eliminated. 

There has to be a better way to use them, however.  There have already been efforts to reduce bus traffic within San Jose. However, the other cities of the Central Valley must also be addressed, as should the rural roadways.  Without rural buses, my usual commute into the closest city would take 35 to 50 percent the time it does.  Buses on winding, two-lane (if that) roads that stop far too often and squarely in the lane of traffic can resemble the locomotive of a long train of cars by the time it reaches a city.  Unfortunately, all those cars are not being pulled by the bus, but are independently burning fuel and emitting trails of exhaust. 

I realize that Costa Rica cannot afford to widen all the country roads, but it could restrict its buses from stopping at unauthorized stops, limit stops to no more than one per 500 meters, and provide space for buses to pull over out of the traffic lane at all stops.  The last of these criteria is the most important and would be the most costly, but would allow regular traffic to continue while the buses made their stops, and would thereby greatly reduce Costa Rica's carbon footprint and dependency on foreign oil.

If Costa Rica is really serious about its environmental impact, it should look at the places where it is the most inefficient in its use of fossil fuels.  Anyone who has paid attention to their fuel consumption elsewhere and here has undoubtedly noticed that a tank of fuel doesn't go nearly as far here.