| | |  Editorials | Issues | June 2009 
Mexico Cracks Down on Local Police Corruption
 David Luhnow - The Wall Street Journal
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June 10, 2009
| | Federal police raided local police stations in the Mexican state of Nuevo León on Tuesday, following a standoff Monday in the city of Monterrey, above, at which federal police arrested seven municipal agents. (European Pressphoto Agency) | |
Mexico City - Federal police raided several local police stations in northern Nuevo León state Tuesday, as part of a sweep to try to clean up local forces allegedly corrupted by drug-trafficking gangs, state officials said. The raids came a day after heavily armed federal police engaged in a tense standoff with local officers in Monterrey, Mexico's third-biggest city.
Several dozen federal police and scores of local police squared off for several hours Monday afternoon at a busy intersection in Monterrey, aiming at each other with semiautomatic assault weapons and threatening to kill one another. In the end, no one was hurt, but images of the two forces aiming guns at each other stunned Mexicans.
The standoff took place amid a crackdown on allegedly corrupt local police across the state. In the past nine days, some 78 police officers, including a local police chief, have been detained on suspicion of being in the pay of Mexico's powerful drug-trafficking groups. Army troops and federal police have raided police stations across Nuevo León almost daily, interviewing officers and inspecting their weapons and cellphones.
The sweep began after army raids of gangs belonging to the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico's strongest, led to the discovery of lists of officers in the gangs' pay, according to state judicial officials.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón has been trying to slow a wave of violence between drug gangs that has led to an estimated 10,800 deaths since he took power in December 2006. He has sent the army into several states, is trying to weed out corrupt officers, and has taken aim at politicians in the pay of narco-traffickers. Last month, several mayors in the state of Michoacán were arrested on charges of being in league with drug gangs.
Monday's events show how difficult it will be to clean up local police forces. The arrests of local police angered their colleagues, who staged a protest by using their patrol cars to blockade busy city avenues, snarling traffic.
When federal police arrived to clear the intersections, local police drew their weapons and threatened to shoot.
Making matters worse, someone issued a call on the police emergency frequency saying that a local police commander had been kidnapped, and requesting local police from several municipalities to come to the scene.
The standoff ended after federal police arrested seven officers and impounded about 10 police cars used to block traffic.
State officials said there were indications that drug gangs had ordered at least some of the local police to stage the protests.
"The arrests of some important people linked to organized crime caused, according to the information we have, these protests," said Nuevo León state public-security chief Aldo Fasci late Monday. "If some people definitely were ordered to do this by organized crime, then that's very different from responding to a call for help, and that's why several people have been arrested."
Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow(at)wsj.com |
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