The news coming out of dusty border city El Paso, Texas, is usually pretty grim. The metro suffers from 9.5% unemployment, declining high-school graduation rates and inadequate infrastructure. But a closer look reveals an employment picture that, at least in one way, is improving. In the past four years, incomes for college graduates there have steadily grown more than any other major metropolitan area.

Several factors, like increased border patrol activity requiring jobs in intelligence and other white-collar work, and recent expansions of both Fort Bliss, one of the country’s largest military bases, and the local University of Texas campus, have boosted pay for educated Texans. Couple that with El Paso’s relative protection from the battered housing economy and it’s easier to see why pay is inching up.

“Under most circumstances, it would be surprising for El Paso to rank so highly on any type of income gauge,” says Tom Fullerton, economics professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. “But there has been some really fortunate timing in terms of expansion in the local economy.”

Indeed, it’s not always the most affluent or economically robust cities where incomes for professionals have jumped the most, according to data provided by Seattle-based Payscale, an online provider of employee compensation data with a database of 18.5 million employee profiles. Median pay rose in El Paso by 19.4% to $49,100 since 2005, handily outpacing the 8% national growth for college grads.

Closely following El Paso are Bakersfield, Calif., an oil town packed with engineers, where incomes are up 18.5%; Omaha, Neb., a national center for large insurance carriers like Mutual of Omaha, which saw an 18.4% jump; and Virginia Beach, Va., home to U.S. military bases including Naval Air Station Oceana, where the median rose 17.3%.  [Yahoo Finance]

A U.S. serviceman was among six victims of an early morning shooting at a Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, strip club Wednesday, officials said.Unidentified gunmen entered the Amadeus club in the border city across from El Paso, Texas, just after midnight and fatally shot six men, Chihuahua state attorney general’s office spokesman Arturo Sandoval said.

An additional person was injured, he said.

Two of the victims were identified as employees of the strip club, a waiter and a security guard, the spokesman said.

Another was identified as an American citizen and member of the U.S. Air Force, Sandoval said.

A statement from Holloman Air Force Base, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, confirmed that the airman was based there, and identified him as Staff Sgt. David Booher, 26.

The gunmen appeared to have targeted the victims, Sandoval said.

“Everything indicates that these people were looking for these men,” he said.

Investigators recovered more than 30 shells from the scene.

Because of drug-related violence, particularly in border cities, Juarez is considered off-limits for the U.S. military. At Fort Bliss in El Paso, for instance, a memorandum prohibits its soldiers from traveling into the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located.

More than 2,000 killings have been recorded in Juarez this year.  [CNN]

I can remember just 9 years ago being able to travel down to Juarez from Ft. Bliss and have a good time down there.  Now there is absolutely no way I would ever go over there.  I know a number of locals who used to live down there and commuted to Ft. Bliss to work.  Over the past few years they moved from Juarez and now live full time in El Paso because of the violence.  It is just incredible how quickly the violence has gotten out of control over there and how the Mexican government has been nearly impotent to stop it. 

It is also troubling to see a Ft. Bliss soldier involved in a cartel sponsored hit and now an Air Force Sergeant murdered in a targeted cartel hit.

The Department of Defense has awarded over $107 million in grants to Fort Bliss from the economic stimulus bill passed by Congress earlier this year.

The funding will be used for repairs to unpaved tank trails at training areas, repairs to the highway connecting Fort Bliss to White Sands Missile Range and repairs and renovations at facilities throughout the base, according to Congressman Silvestre Reyes.

“Today’s announcement is a major victory for El Paso and Fort Bliss. This funding is coming at a critical time as Fort Bliss is continuing preparations for the thousands of soldiers who will soon call El Paso home. These funds will support critical projects that will further Fort Bliss’ strategic importance to America’s national security and also create much-needed jobs in the community,” Reyes said in a news release.  [KVIA TV]

After 41 years at Fort Bliss, the Army’s air defense school is packing up and leaving for Oklahoma.

The Air Defense Artillery School, founded in 1968, and the 6th ADA Brigade are the Army units responsible for teaching soldiers to launch Patriot and other defense missiles. They are headed 650 miles northeast to Fort Sill, Okla.

Officials at Fort Bliss, just outside El Paso, took the first formal step Wednesday in the long-planned move in a brief “color casing” ceremony in which soldiers prepared the air defense school and unit’s official flags to be moved.

The casing ceremony is performed whenever an Army unit deploys or moves to a new post.  [Army Times]

Spc. Gerald Polanco, the Fort Bliss soldier suspected of shooting and killing an 18-year-old Chapin High School student, has been charged with murder, military officials said Tuesday.

Polanco, 37, alleged shot and killed Chapin senior Ezra Gerald Smith while he was riding his bike to school. He also is charged with attempted murder in the wounding of another soldier.

Polanco did not show up for formation with his unit 24 hours before the shootings, said Col. Edward Manning, Fort Bliss garrison commander. This led to another charge against him being absent without leave from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division.

Fort Bliss officials again declined to answer questions about the circumstances of the shooting. Manning would not say what type of weapon was used, nor would he describe the injuries Smith or the other soldier received.

Polanco was being held at the Otero County Jail. He is to appear at a pretrial confinement hearing in about a week.  [El Paso Times]

Cassaundra Nichole Beckel

On Saturday, April 4, 2009, Kevin Patrick Beckel, 23 years old, shot and killed his 19-year-old wife, Cassaundra Nichole Beckel, inside the Ft. Bliss Post Exchange (PX).

The wife, a soldier, had been at Ft. Bliss less than two weeks for training. The husband, who was from Gurnee, Illinois, had lived in Washington State for about a year and had recently moved to El Paso, Texas. According to witnesses, the two had experienced some marital problems recently.

Kevin Beckel, who was unemployed, was seen at the Post Exchange before his wife entered the PX around 4 p.m. Saturday. The two exchanged some conversation inside the PX, then Kevin Beckel pulled out a gun and shot his wife at close range before turning the gun on himself. A suicide note was found at Kevin Beckel’s El Paso residence.

Kevin Beckel

Cassaundra Beckel was pronounced dead at 4:45 p.m. Saturday. Kevin Beckel was pronounced brain dead at 10:55 a.m. Sunday, but was kept on life support until this morning.

The FBI continues to work this case with the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. The FBI has primary jurisdiction whenever a civilian crime occurs at a federal reservation (Ft. Bliss, in this case).  [FBI]

Yesterday another shooting happened involving Ft. Bliss when a soldier shot and killed a local Chapin High School student:

Ezra Gerald Smith

A Chapin High School student who would have graduated in June was shot and killed Friday morning, allegedly by a soldier whose motive remained a mystery.

The bullet felled Ezra Gerald Smith, 18, who was riding his bike to school in a military housing area near Fort Bliss.

Army Spc. Gerald Polanco allegedly shot Smith dead about 7:50 a.m., Fort Bliss officials said.

Polanco, 37, also was charged with shooting and wounding another soldier.Polanco was in a home when he allegedly opened fire. Both victims were outside, said Maj. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, commanding officer at Fort Bliss.

The second victim, a male soldier whose name was withheld by post administrators, was in stable condition at Beaumont Army Medical Center. Bromberg said the soldier had non-life-threatening wounds.

Twenty minutes after the gunfire, Polanco turned himself in to military police and was arrested. Bromberg could offer no possible motive for the shootings.  [El Paso Times]

It is incredible this soldier just opens fire from his home and shoots two people going by his house killing one of them.  From all accounts I have seen the deceased victim was a good kid and that this appears to be unprovoked, especially since it happened at 7:50 AM in the morning.

Specialist Gerald Polanco training an Iraqi police officer.

What is even stranger is that the killer Gerald Polanco is former police officer that was 37 years old and originally from Del Rio, Texas.  He was working as an MP with the 401st Military Police Company and has deployed to Iraq before.    I have to wonder if this guy was high on drugs or something when he opened fire on the two people passing by his house?

If anyone is wondering shootings on Ft. Bliss are extremely rare.  I saw on the news after the PX shooting that there hadn’t been a violent shooting death on Ft. Bliss in twenty years and now there has been two in a month.  Let’s hope there isn’t more and that this is not a start of a gun crime trend on Ft. Bliss.