IN JUAREZ, LITTLE OUTCRY OVER DEATH OF TEENAGER

EL PASO -- At a time of extreme focus on the U.S.-Mexico border, one
might think it would be difficult to cross the Rio Grande into El
Paso illegally.

The presence of U.S. Border Patrol agents, a barrier fence and
high-tech security are all intended to make it more difficult to
cross the border.

But Fernando Campos and others on both sides of the border know better.

Campos lives at the foot of Chihuahua Street, just a few hundred
yards from where a U.S. Border Patrol agent on Monday shot a Mexican
teenager who had just run back south of the border.

Campos, 76, heard the first shot from his front porch before going inside.

The youths who were confronted by Border Patrol agents most likely
were headed for the fence at the end of Campos' street.

"Three days before the shooting, I saw three kids jump over that
fence like rabbits," Campos said. He added that border patrol agents
came a few minutes later, but too late to catch them. "Every day it's
the same thing. After a while, you say, 'I hope you make it.' "

As he sat with a copy of Vanity Fair in front of his tidy cottage
with its well-kept yard, Campos looked out on hundreds walking along
the west side of the Paso del Norte Bridge, crossing into Mexico.
Border Patrol helicopters buzzed constantly overhead.

"You can see the coyotes up on the bridge, directing people down
below," Campos said of those who help people cross illegally into the
United States.

The physical obstacles to crossing aren't as great as you might
think. For one thing, the steel border fence erected during the Bush
administration doesn't extend to the two Downtown bridges.

There's a fence, a rail yard, another fence, a concrete canal that on
Wednesday was swollen with water, yet another fence, then a muddy
riverbed that lies half in Mexico. Campos said the coyotes have cut
holes in the fences that for some reason don't seem to get fixed.

For Carlos Gutierrez, 67, the biggest obstacle to making the crossing
into Mexico on Wednesday was the heat. He lugged two bags of
groceries for his girlfriend. He stopped frequently to take a breather.

As he looked at the base of the railroad bridge where the shooting
took place, with a ball cap saying "Cock Fight" on his head,
Gutierrez said he crosses into Mexico two or three times a week.
There may be illegal crossings, but Gutierrez said he's seen few
confrontations involving Border Patrol.

From what he's heard about Monday's incident, he thinks the shooting
was excessive.

"Shooting at somebody throwing rocks is too much," he said.

Despite the Mexican government's outrage at the shooting, disapproval
on the Juarez side of the bridge seems mild.

"There was no need to shoot," said Benjamin Garcia as he sat in the
shade of an awning in the 104-degree heat in Juarez. But he said
there isn't much public outrage.

In his block, expressionless soldiers stood with machine guns amid
the pharmacies, a dentist's office, liquor store, a sports book and
one of the saddest-looking dogs ever. The soldiers are there to
protect pedestrians from a drug war that's claimed more than 5,300
lives in the city since 2008.

That war seems a lot more important to people in Juarez than Monday's shooting.

"I never go down to the bridge," pharmacist Noel Vazquez said,
seeming eager not to talk to a reporter.

Jose de Jesus Meza Lozano, a civil engineer, said he'd heard about
the shooting. But as he offered a visitor water in an office he
shares with his father, he said he has more pressing concerns.

"Every day, I'm really scared to think what's going to happen the
next day," he said.

Because of the drug war, the Juarez economy has slowed to a crawl,
squeezing off revenue for public-works projects like the ones Lozano
designs. So feeding his family and keeping it alive are his concerns.

But less than a mile away in the U.S., it seems that Mexico's
violence has to involve Americans to get much attention.

The last time Campos saw a reporter was in March, when gunman killed
an employee of the U.S. Consulate and her husband near the Mexican
foot of the bridge. For two days, CNN parked a satellite truck right
where Campos has been watching people jump the fence for all these years.