 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2007 
Mexican Soldiers Take Over Tabasco State Police
 Reuters
| | Bullet casings litter trhe ground after Jose Perez Moya, a bodyguard working for Tabasco's state police chief Francisco Fernandez Solis, was killed as he tried to repel an attack on his boss by unknown gunmen in the state capital Villahermosa March 6, 2007. Solis was unhurt in the attack. (Reuters/Odaliz Anaya) |
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers and federal officers seized the police headquarters of Tabasco state over the weekend following a surge of violence in the tropical region, local media reported.
Soldiers forced dozens of state police to hand over their weapons for registration, detained at least three people and suspended at least one senior official in the city of Villahermosa, the reports said.
Tabasco, normally peaceful compared to many Mexican states, is experiencing a crime wave that is being blamed on drug gangs at war with each other and the government.
Last week police found a severed head in front of the state police headquarters. It apparently was left there as a threat by criminals.
Earlier this month, gunmen with assault rifles seriously wounded the Tabasco state security minister and killed his bodyguard.
"We decided to ask for help in investigating everything that has happened recently and since last year, in terms of kidnappings ... murder attempts and other things," senior state official Humberto Mayans told local radio.
President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to fight organized crime in the north of Mexico and Pacific coast states. But now the violence has spread to other areas including Tabasco.
In January soldiers disarmed municipal police in the northern border city of Tijuana, where officers are often seen as in the pocket of drug gangs.
Mexico's Security Ministry could not be reached for comment about the Tabasco operation.
Despite Calderon's nearly four-month crackdown, hundreds of murders have been linked to drug crime so far this year, similar to the same period last year. Drug smugglers killed at least 2,000 people in 2006.
(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez)
Mexican State Police Arrested in Raid
Antonio Villegas - Associated Press
Hundreds of Mexican federal police and soldiers surrounded the headquarters of Tabasco's state police and arrested top current and former commanders in a raid apparently linked to an assassination attempt against the state's public safety secretary.
The federal officers disarmed police at the state public safety headquarters at Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco located 410 miles east of Mexico City, and arrested three top state police commanders there, as well as two other former commanders detained elsewhere, said Tabasco state Interior Secretary Humberto Mayans.
The Saturday raid — in which 350 federal police and about 150 soldiers disarmed state police — followed a March 6 shooting attack in which retired Gen. Francisco Fernandez Solis, the new head of state public safety, was wounded and his driver killed.
No charges against the men were immediately announced, but the five detainees were taken to the offices of the Assistant Attorney General for Investigation of Organized Crime in Mexico City for questioning. Mayans said the arrests were related to the ongoing investigation into the attack on Fernandez Solis.
After the raid, state police officers returned to their duties with only nightsticks, while armed federal officers performed patrols.
While investigators had originally said they thought the attack on Fernandez Solis had been carried out by drug traffickers, Saturday's arrests appeared to lend credence to reports the shooting had been the work of a shadowy "brotherhood" of rogue policemen angered by the new security secretary's rigorous approach to combatting the drug trade and other crimes. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us