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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2005 
Coach Abducted, Adding Focus to Common Mexican Dread
 James C. Mckinley Jr. - NYTimes
| | Investigators check inside the SUV driven by coach Rubn Omar Romano of the Cruza Azul soccer team in Mexico City. Investigators in Mexico's capital are treating the attack on the coach of a popular soccer team as a kidnapping, but said Wednesday the victim's family has not sought their help. (Photo: AP) |
Mexico City - Armed men kidnapped a famous soccer coach in broad daylight on Tuesday afternoon as he left practice, fanning the anger of supporters of crime victims who say that kidnapping gangs are running amok in Mexico.
The coach, Rubén Omar Romano, had just left a practice session with his team, Cruz Azul, about 2 p.m. when five armed men in two stolen cars ambushed him and his driver, trapping his car on a narrow road.
Jumping from their cars, the assailants fired at least four shots, then dragged the coach out of his BMW, threw him into one of their vehicles and sped off, law enforcement authorities said. Three blocks away they transferred Mr. Romano to another car and escaped, the Mexico district attorney's office said. No one was injured during the kidnapping.
The brazen abduction made front-page news throughout Mexico, dominated talk radio on Wednesday, and led to renewed calls from citizens' groups for tougher measures to stop a wave of abductions that they maintain has made Mexico City one of the leading kidnapping centers in Latin America, as dangerous as Colombia.
"Unfortunately, this is a daily event for the people that inhabit this country, especially those of us who live in Mexico City," said José Antonio Ortega Sánchez, the president of the Citizens' Council for Public Security and Penal Justice. "Kidnappings are an out-of-control problem for the authorities."
Kidnappings have become so commonplace for the rich in Mexico that most upper-class families know someone who has been abducted, and it is a frequent topic of dinner conversations.
Still, the daylight abduction of a beloved sports figure was shocking, and increased pressure from advocates for crime victims who charge the government has not done enough to address the problem. Last year, hundreds of thousands of people marched through downtown Mexico City in protest.
At least 70 people have been reported kidnapped to federal authorities in the city so far this year, groups supporting kidnapping victims say; 197 were reported abducted last year.
As with most kidnappings in Mexico, where the authorities are often seen as corrupt and inept, Mr. Romano's family has asked the police and federal agents not to intervene. The family is dealing directly with the kidnappers, said Rodolfo Torres, a spokesman for the Mexico City prosecutor's office.
Benardo Batíz Vázquez, chief prosecutor for the capital, said, "We have an investigation open, but the family, as well as the directors of the club, are going to be the ones to tell us if we have a direct participation or not."
Federal agents have given Mr. Romano's relatives, who live in Guadalajara, advice on how to deal with the ransom demands, but are not investigating, because the family has not lodged a formal complaint, said José Luis Manjarrez Nava, a spokesman for the federal attorney general.
On Wednesday morning, a shopping bag containing a ransom note was discovered under a bench near a church in the Coyóacan section of the city, Carina Rochen, a spokeswoman for the city district attorney, said. The note demanded the Romano family deliver $500,000 or Mr. Romano would be killed, she said. It also provided a telephone number and the name Abram. The authorities would not say whether the kidnappers had set a deadline.
Mr. Romano, 47, who was born in Buenos Aires, has been popular in Mexico for years, as a player and later as a coach. He took over Cruz Azul in 2004 and is widely credited with reviving its fortunes last season, when the team finished second in Mexico's premier league. He lives with his father, his wife and two children.
Most of the kidnapping victims in Mexico are the families of wealthy business leaders, but the relatives of a few entertainment and sports celebrities have been targets as well.
In 1999, the father of Jorge Campos, a famous goaltender, was abducted in Acapulco and held for eight days before his family paid a ransom. In 2002, the son of a well-known singer, Vicente Fernández, was abducted, as well as two sisters of another famous singer, Thalía.
The kidnapping of Mr. Romano, however, appeared to be the first in recent memory in which criminals had taken a sports star himself, rather than a family member, the authorities said. Usually, criminals abduct children and put pressure on the head of the family.
The kidnapping of Mr. Romano came as one of the major anticrime groups - Mexicans United Against Crime - has been broadcasting a series of gruesome advertisements to draw attention to the problem. In one, a former kidnapping victim urges people to report abductions. After making his plea, he holds up his hands, showing where his captors had lopped off several fingers.
María Elena Morera, the leader of Mexicans United Against Crime, said that the government had made some progress in dismantling kidnapping gangs, but that extortions through threatened kidnappings had risen, as had "express" kidnappings, in which people are grabbed off the street at random and held for hours while their families are extorted.
"We are very sorry for what has happened to Señor Romano, but this is one of many kidnappings that happen in the Mexican Republic and that, unfortunately, people don't report," she said.
Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftist who is the front-runner in the presidential race next year, was pressed during a news conference Wednesday to discuss the kidnappings and crime in general. He defended his government's attempts to crack down on the gangs, maintaining that reported crimes are declining. "More than anything I am at peace with my conscience," he said. |
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