Mexican border town struggles to deal with corrupt police force
BY ALFREDO CORCHADO of The Dallas Morning News
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - (KRT) - When Eduardo Santos saw a car robbery happening practically in front of his house last weekend, his first thought was to call the police. His second thought was that maybe the cops were the robbers.
He was right. When he went with the victim to recover the car from the impound lot, Santos said, he recognized the robbers among the police officers.
"They're all corrupt," said Santos, 21, a university student majoring in computer science. "When I see them, I usually hurry my step."
In this besieged border city, the concept of a police officer as someone to go to for help has been turned on its head. In Nuevo Laredo, a cop is suspect, someone to avoid. Many residents say that for years they have lived in fear of their local police.
Most residents in Nuevo Laredo - and many across Mexico - simply don't report crimes, even serious offenses such as robberies, rapes or kidnappings. They don't trust the police and feel they would just be wasting time filing a report.
More than 90 percent of all crimes in Mexico never are solved, according to statistics from the country's attorney general's office.
How corrupt are police in Nuevo Laredo? In the federal government's ongoing Operation Safe Mexico, in which federal officers were sent to take over law enforcement duties in the city, local officers were temporarily relieved of duty and investigated for possible involvement in crime.
Of the estimated 720 officers who underwent drug, polygraph and psychological tests and backgrounds checks, 290 had been cleared to return to work as early as today, state officials said.
"Masked people assault peaceful people, and they are no X or Z gang," said one radio commentator. "They are the police. We have a cancer here."
Ramon Martin Huerta, federal secretary of public security, said, "Corruption is an evil that batters society. I don't see a sector that's beyond the reach of corruption."
Martin Huerta said so far, 104 suspected criminals were being held in the operation, which covers the states of Baja California, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas. He said 206 Nuevo Laredo police were in custody and that federal authorities had confiscated 104 firearms. He said of 41 city officers arrested this week after an altercation with federal officers, at least 13 were likely to be charged. Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez Flores said some local officers who passed the tests would be back at work today, assisted by state police.
"We will start from zero," the governor said. "We want Nuevo Laredo to have a trustworthy police force, and we'll be here permanently with a long-term plan to make the police force of Nuevo Laredo to be the best along the border of Tamaulipas. We will not skimp on resources to assist the city."
Some residents said they are not looking forward to the return of the local officers. In March, Yolanda, a 34-year-old mother of three, returned home to find her TV and living room lamps gone. She reported the robbery because her insurance company required her to do so.
Yolanda, who asked that her last name not be used, said two officers arrived and took a report of the incident. After they left, she noticed that her stereo and her son's Nintendo were gone. Angry, she called the station and reported what had happened. Shortly thereafter, one of the two officers called back.
"Call again and we'll take your car, too," she recalled him saying. "Imagine my disgust and fear. We're better off without them."
Residents don't particularly trust anyone in a uniform, whether local, state or even federal officers. Residents are well aware that the two paramilitary groups - the Zetas and the Men in Black - who are battling each other on behalf of rival drug cartels, include people who used to be members of federal elite forces.
This week, bystanders gathered outside a municipal police station as federal soldiers surrounded the block. Inside the station were blue-uniformed members of the city police force. Esther Duran said she was glad that Mexican army troops, clad in olive green, and federal agents, in black, had arrived. Asked if she trusted them, she hesitated and then said,
"Si."But sometimes there are people in the streets and they are dressed in uniforms and they detain you and you find out they are mafia," she said, throwing her hands up.
Some said the outsiders brought some peace of mind but complained about the expected short stay of the federal agents and troops, many of whom roamed the streets toting AR-15 assault rifles and 9mm pistols.
"They just came here to tease us," said Juan de la Rosa, a merchant downtown, where the violence has hit hard economically. "I beg of them not to leave."
For the first time in months, Thelma Morales, 34, permitted her two sons, Francisco and Juan, to play outside after school.
"I felt so safe with the presence of the federal government here," she said. "If they leave, then this will worsen my worst suspicion that this was just a show."
The federal government insists that is not the case. The Nuevo Laredo campaign, they say, is part of an effort to clean up police forces in at least 14 cities nationwide. The Mexican military, army special forces and AFI, Mexico's equivalent of the FBI, are not just parading through the streets, officials said. They have taken over some installations in an operation presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar described as "purifying the police force."
"In our society, there is no room for criminals," said President Vicente Fox, as he called on Congress to approve tough penalties for wayward law enforcement officials in cahoots with drug traffickers. "We're after them, and we will make them pay for their crimes. There won't be a truce or weak hand."
Some in Nuevo Laredo, however, aren't quite ready to believe. Mirla Mata, 21, who has a son and daughter, said that when it comes to crime, she follows the advice of her husband. If something happens, he told her, she should not report it because the police cannot be trusted.
"Don't call the police. Call no one but me," he told her.
Mata's husband is a Nuevo Laredo police officer.
BY ALFREDO CORCHADO of The Dallas Morning News
