Word: phoenixes
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When Kevin Ross was a stockbroker in Phoenix, Ariz., and the pressure got to be too much, he would slip into a dark room and drape a wet washcloth over his forehead. He wasn't playing with his own money in those days, but the stress could be pretty brutal nonetheless. Then Ross had an epiphany: embrace the pressure and go for broke. Last February he gave up his six-figure income and moved to San Francisco to become a day trader...
...immigrants, Davila says, are "suspicious of cops. In Mexico most of a policeman's salary is from bribes. They think we're going to beat them up or take their money." It doesn't help that while Hispanics make up more than 28% of the 1.2 million residents of Phoenix, they account for only 12% of the city's police...
...this, add the drug problem. On May 5, police stumbled onto the biggest drug bust in city history--a ton of cocaine valued at half a billion dollars--and arrested two Mexican nationals. A federal drug official told the Arizona Republic, "Phoenix has arrived...as a drug transshipment point...
...then there's the gang problem. An estimated 300 gangs and 7,000 gang members work the streets of Phoenix, selling drugs, stealing cars and occasionally aerating one another. One day officer Robert Vasquez brings an East Side gang member into the station for a chat--a kid he is trying to rescue after meeting him at an alternative school. The 17-year-old has a tattoo of an X under his right eye and an 8 under his left. It's his gang ID. He runs with Wetback Power's 18th Street crew. "It's crazy out there...
This kind of work provides a vital, unseen ballast as Phoenix is rocked by Atkinson's murder and by the ugly reaction from some quarters that there should be a crackdown on "the Mexicans" who should be sent packing. What could be a breakdown in race relations is defused by a quiet, powerful counter-demonstration--a defining moment in city history...