Posted on 01/06/2007 11:23:26 AM PST by NormsRevenge
TIJUANA – Though stripped of their weapons, the 2,300 members of the local police force were ordered back to work yesterday, and returned to answering calls for help across this sprawling city with assistance from state and federal agencies.
For now, the unarmed municipal officers are relying on their armed counterparts to respond to risky situations, according to the city's public safety director, Luis Javier Algorri Franco. But across Tijuana, officers were investigating accidents, directing traffic and responding to a variety of nonviolent situations.
President Felipe Calderón's administration ordered the disarming of the entire police force Thursday as part of Operation Tijuana, a massive offensive launched this week and aimed at gaining control over corruption, lawlessness and violence in the region. Nearly 3,300 soldiers and federal agents are being dispatched to the city, though it was not clear yesterday how many had arrived.
Officers stopped patrolling the city Thursday afternoon after Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon said it was too dangerous for them to work without weapons and told them to report to City Hall for their shifts. Their patrol cars and pickups parked in a large courtyard, uniformed officers still milled about yesterday morning before being directed to resume their duties.
“We are going to try to make the best possible use of our officers, while putting them at the least possible risk,” Algorri said at a news conference in downtown Tijuana.
Those who work in prisoner transport or special units that target street crime or who serve as bodyguards are being reassigned because weapons are critical to those positions, Algorri said. The situation could last as long as three weeks, while the military performs ballistics tests on every weapon, he said. The tests could help determine if the guns were used in any of the region's many drug-related killings.
For the most part, life in the city was mostly unchanged yesterday. Residents went to work, and they crowded a popular mall on the eve of Three Kings Day. For most Tijuanans, the biggest disruptions since the operation began have been the military checkpoints and the resulting traffic gridlock.
Anger about Baja California's crime problems has been building in recent months; 23 municipal, state and federal officers were killed last year, Algorri said. Business and government leaders – including Hank and Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther – have been clamoring for federal intervention.
Still, Algorri, Hank and other critics said disarming the entire police department at one time went too far and left the city without protection. Hank's political allies have suggested the intent was to tarnish his administration as he prepares to run for governor.
“We are certain that there are problems of corruption in police departments. But to single out just one department” is not just, Algorri said. He doubted that the ballistics tests would turn up much because it is unlikely that a registered weapon would be used to commit a crime.
But members of Calderón's administration defended the measure as necessary, given the grip of organized crime over the Tijuana police department. Launched less than a month after Calderón assumed office, Operation Tijuana is aimed at a range of crimes including drug trafficking, homicide and kidnapping in the region.
As groups of federal and state police patrolled the city, reinforcements were being sent from Ensenada and Mexicali, said Carlos Alberto Flores, director of the Baja California State Preventive Police.
On Thursday, state and federal agents in Mexicali broke up a major kidnapping ring, but in Tijuana, the initial results have been modest: The Baja California government reported that in the first three days of the operation, the special units in Tijuana had recovered five stolen vehicles, confiscated five small stashes of drugs and arrested eight people.
“For the kind of criminals and crimes they're trying to target, it's improbable that you're going to see results in the short term,” said Daniel Romero Mejia, statewide head of the influential Business Coordinating Council.
The magnitude of the operation shows “political will,” Romero said. But to avoid political interpretations of disarming the municipal police department, he said the measure should be extended to other police agencies operating in the state.
Algorri said yesterday he had received complaints from businessmen concerned that municipal officers who work as their bodyguards were now without weapons.
“Businessmen have called me, they've said, 'What's happening? We're going to have to go to the United States because we can't be without bodyguards.' ” Algorri said.
He said the situation does not place tourists at increased risk.
Charles Smith, a spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, said the U.S. government travel advisory has not changed. “We're telling Americans who inquire the same thing, as always, there's safety in numbers and to stay in well-traveled, well-known areas that are frequented by tourists.”
At the Plaza Rio Tijuana shopping center in the Rio Zone, families and clusters of young people filled the shops and restaurants as they do every Friday evening. Municipal police cruised the parking lot in marked pickups.
For Alfonso Escutia, yesterday was just another day at the mall with his family. Nor were things any different in the Santa Julia neighborhood where he lives, he said.
“Everything I see is the same, nothing is any better and nothing is any worse,” said Escutia, 44. “All of my neighbors and my friends say the same thing. The only difference is that you see the police without their pistols. Nothing else.”
Tom and Betty Gallenili of Utah had spent the day sightseeing in Tijuana with friends and were unaware of the military operation.
“You mean, like, the military has taken over the city?” asked Betty Gallenili. “We haven't seen anything.”
Added her husband, “No checkpoints or anything at all. We feel perfectly fine here. We'll probably stay for another couple of days.”
STOP! Or I'll yell stop again!
This is an attempt to weed out the corrupt cops, which good be a good thing for mexico. Good luck to him. However, he should be carrying on an active investigation of the corrupt cops while they are working.
And shaking down American tourists for $20 on every traffic stop.
FMCDH(BITS)
not only that, but the bad guys figure to get the dreaded "letter of deep concern" if they don't forego their dastardly ways..
Take a glimpse at California in the year 2020.
A cop in Tijuana. My dream job.
Maybe we have more control over the goings on in Mexico than we know?
Who's more armed - Tijuana cops or US NG at the border?
It's an unfortunate fact of life that Mexican municipal police are terribly paid, and the standards are low... and "they don't get no respect". A policeman can't support a family on his earnings, so the job isn't attractive to stable decent people. Local coppers include more than your share of the uneducated, twisted and socially inept. AND... as in a lot of places, the police have always been seen as a way not to "serve and protect" the people, but to protect the powers-that-be.
Taking away the municipal policemen's guns in TJ is radical, but the army and PFP are better paid, and have a better reputation (the PFP officers are military academy graduates). I lived in Mexico City for years, where the police department improved dramatically when the officers started being paid better (and attracted better educated people). I know Lopez Obrador is the devil to a lot of folks here, but he deserves a lot of credit for upping the salaries and requirement for the job (I worked at a former Olympics Stadium that was also where the cops went for morning roll-call... and -- wonder of wonders -- physical fitness training. It's gonna take years to get rid of those overweight taco-in-one-hand, whistle in the other [and bribes sticking out of the pocket] traffic coppers). The new Mexico City mayor was the Police Chief under Lopez Obrador, and put in some radical changes of his own -- little things like making cops account for how much money they had on them at the start and end of their shifts, and better uniforms (if you feel like a respectable person, you act respectable).
Nezahuacoatl, the huge "semi-slum" next door to Mexico City, which never had a decent city budget, did a weird experiment where they started sending cops to school -- not just to up their educational level, but to make a well-rounded person: cops were set to reading a book a month (yes, they included a lot of detective novels!), and even taking art appreciation classes. It worked... crime is down and respect for the cops is up in Naza.
I thought it was interesting that during the Oaxaca crisis earlier this year, when the city had no functional police department, crime was down! It probably had to do with "citizen watch" groups, but during the uprising there were only 9 murders in the city. And of those, several were state agents fighting the protesters (including the American reporter shot by a local cop in plainclothes).
It's an unfortunate fact of life that Mexican municipal police are terribly paid, and the standards are low... and "they don't get no respect". A policeman can't support a family on his earnings, so the job isn't attractive to stable decent people. Local coppers include more than your share of the uneducated, twisted and socially inept. AND... as in a lot of places, the police have always been seen as a way not to "serve and protect" the people, but to protect the powers-that-be.
Taking away the municipal policemen's guns in TJ is radical, but the army and PFP are better paid, and have a better reputation (the PFP officers are military academy graduates). I lived in Mexico City for years, where the police department improved dramatically when the officers started being paid better (and attracted better educated people). I know Lopez Obrador is the devil to a lot of folks here, but he deserves a lot of credit for upping the salaries and requirement for the job (I worked at a former Olympics Stadium that was also where the cops went for morning roll-call... and -- wonder of wonders -- physical fitness training. It's gonna take years to get rid of those overweight taco-in-one-hand, whistle in the other [and bribes sticking out of the pocket] traffic coppers). The new Mexico City mayor was the Police Chief under Lopez Obrador, and put in some radical changes of his own -- little things like making cops account for how much money they had on them at the start and end of their shifts, and better uniforms (if you feel like a respectable person, you act respectable).
Nezahuacoatl, the huge "semi-slum" next door to Mexico City, which never had a decent city budget, did a weird experiment where they started sending cops to school -- not just to up their educational level, but to make a well-rounded person: cops were set to reading a book a month (yes, they included a lot of detective novels!), and even taking art appreciation classes. It worked... crime is down and respect for the cops is up in Naza.
I thought it was interesting that during the Oaxaca crisis earlier this year, when the city had no functional police department, crime was down! It probably had to do with "citizen watch" groups, but during the uprising there were only 9 murders in the city. And of those, several were state agents fighting the protesters (including the American reporter shot by a local cop in plainclothes).
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