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 Editorials | Issues | January 2007 
Residents Pleased with Disarmed Police
 Richard Marosi, Sam Enriquez & Héctor Tobar - LATimes
| | A local police officer puts his hand on his empty holster during a patrol in downtown Tijuana January 6, 2007. Many of Tijuana's 2,300 municipal police angrily walked off the job late on Thursday after federal forces hauled their weapons off for inspection in a hunt for officers in cahoots with crime gangs. The seizure of some 1,600 guns underscored a widespread belief that many low-paid local police work with criminals. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo) |
Tijuana - Disarmed municipal police patrolled alongside armed state police last week, a sight that brought some comfort to many in this border city where municipal police are often equated with corruption and a plague of drug-fueled violence.
Municipal officers, their holsters empty, directed traffic and made the rounds a day after stopping work in response to being stripped of their weapons by the military.
The Army operation in Tijuana and a similar incursion in the southern state of Michoacán, some analysts say, have been a political boon to President Felipe Calderón, who recently took office, allowing him to project an image of strength and decisiveness.
Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City analyst who has written extensively on the country´s drug wars, said that although Calderón´s crackdown in Tijuana "has zero chance of stopping the buying and selling of drugs," limiting the number of drug killings to the relatively lower numbers of the recent past is an achievable goal.
"What he´s saying is that there are some things that won´t be permitted," Chabat said. "You can´t be cutting people´s heads off. It´s a question of image. You can´t allow Tijuana to look like a civil war in Africa."
Mexican and U.S. federal authorities say some police are active members of drug trafficking organizations, and several officers have been arrested over the years. Several kidnap victims say that police officers took part in their abductions. The city has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world.
Tijuana, a sprawling metropolis of about 1.5 million people, was bustling as usual Friday, and there were no signs of social unrest or public disorder two days after more than 3,500 soldiers and federal agents starting arriving as part of Operation Tijuana.
Members of the 2,300strong municipal police force were ordered by the military to turn in their weapons to see whether any are linked with homicides and other crimes.
More than 2,000 weapons, most of them 9 mm handguns, but also some automatic weapons and shotguns, are being inspected.
Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon said in an interview that he had feared putting unarmed police at risk and had ordered them off the streets Thursday after receiving assurances from the general in charge of Operation Tijuana, Héctor Sánchez Gutiérrez, that his troops would maintain order.
The 18 hours without municipal police went without any major incidents, though there were some complaints of no law enforcement response to a few minor traffic accidents.
And at the jail holding facility in the red light district, Municipal Judge Oscar González Valdez said he had freed some detainees - mostly drinking-related offenders - because there were no transit police to take them to the main jail across the city.
Municipal police may get their weapons back within two weeks, say Tijuana officials, but many residents aren´t demanding urgent action.
"This is stupendous," said Alfredo Arias, the manager of a restaurant in the tough neighborhood of La Libertad that was riddled by hundreds of bullets in a shootout last year between masked gunmen and federal agents.
Arias, like other residents and experts, say police weapons are not properly accounted for and are often loaned out to criminal rings. "This will obligate them to take care of their weapons," said Arias.
Alberto Capella, president of Tijuana´s citizens´ advisory council on public safety, said disarming the police had met with widespread support. "In some ways it´s a necessary evil ... part of the cleansing we need to improve the department." he said.
Federal and state authorities said the operation had already yielded significant results with the arrest of seven people allegedly linked to the attempted assassination last year of the former head of public safety in Baja California.
Tijuana residents have certainly felt the military presence as traffic backed up at several checkpoints on major streets leading into and out of the city.
But army or no army, thousands of people lined a two-mile-long route to see the city´s annual Three Kings parade Friday night.
Plastered on several floats - including the giant drum banged by a toy soldier - was "Caliente," the name of the race track and betting enterprise owned by Hank Rhon.
Tractor-trailer trucks pulled floats that carried flatbeds decorated with Christmas trees, giant wrapped gifts and a miniature Bethlehem.
Two of the three wise men rode camels and a third rode atop an elephant. Legions of gladiators led a contingent of shepherd girls, while police helicopters hovered overhead.
Gregorio Martínez, 55, who has lived in Tijuana for 35 years, said the military operation was a bold first strike.
"I bet the number of assaults goes down until the police get their guns back. I feel pretty safe right now," he said.
But Martínez, like others, wonders whether the operation will have a long-term effect.
A similar feeling swept Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border last year when former President Vicente Fox sent federal police and the Army to replace local police, notorious for their brutality and corruption.
For the first weeks and months, federal patrols drove city streets and residents said they felt a great weight lifted off their shoulders. The feeling didn´t last.
By summer, the last of the federal police left, leaving the border town back in the hands of a local police department operating with only half of the department´s 600 positions filled. Robbery and kidnappings have surged, along with homicides.
The recent operation in Michoacán has also flopped, according to one U.S. law enforcement source, saying the deployment failed to turn up any significant drug seizures or arrests.
The drug traffickers in Michoacán, the source said, fled to nearby Jalisco ahead of the operation, fumigated like cockroaches. "Some of the locals were calling it Operacion Cucaracha" (Operation Cockroach), said the source.
Some say that Tijuana´s criminal kingpins have also left the city, with one police official joking that they´re probably skiing at Big Bear in California.
For Hank Rhon, who is planning to run for governor of Baja California state this year, the operation has hurt his political fortunes, say some analysts.
"The sight of Tijuana policemen being disarmed by the Army was an embarrassment," said Jesús Silva Herzog, a Mexico City political analyst.
"This is a very serious blow to Hank Rhon, and to his political aspirations in the state," said Silva Herzog.
The mayor discounted suggestions that the operation was an attempt by Calderón to sabotage his gubernatorial bid. He said Calderón was following through on a request he made last year for more federal help in Tijuana.
The mayor has acknowledged that the municipal police force is riddled with corruption, but he said so are other state and federal agencies.
Marosi and Enriquez reported from Tijuana and Tobar from Mexico City. |
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