Police escort Mexican travelers on 'death highway

Digital Journal: Twenty cars line up between police cruisers in a violent northeastern Mexican city, ready to be escorted at high speed across a notorious "death highway" infested with gangs that kill and kidnap.

Many are Mexican migrants who drove across the border to Matamoros from the United States, bearing gifts for their families for the Christmas holidays.

Others are local residents who know the dangers they face driving across Tamaulipas, the state with the highest number of missing people in Mexico -- 5,000 out of 26,000 nationally -- and regular drug cartel battles. Read more. 

Mexican police accused of shooting demonstrators point-blank in the head

World News Report: Mexican police shot unarmed protesters in the head as they were cowering on the ground, according to a hard-hitting report compiled by Human Rights Watch.

Demonstrators against the government were beaten with metal pipes, dragged to the ground and shot. A 20-year-old pregnant woman, Rosa Isela Orozco Sandoval, said she was punched, kicked and dragged across the ground. One witness told HRW that a policeman put a gun against his head, and only refrained from pulling the trigger when another policeman warned his colleague that locals were filming the confrontation.

Why crimes are rarely reported in Mexico

El Daily Post: Don’t bother. Over at Vice News, Andrea Noel tells a horrifying story about getting mugged in Mexico and then trying to report the crime. Here’s a taste: “Back in Mexico, I went into my nearest prosecutor's office last Monday, hoping to file a new police report and lodge a complaint against the attendant who had pressed me into lying on official documents. When I got to where I needed to be, the official behind the counter told me I would have to go to a different district to try to file a complaint. I was informed that the process would take at least 20 days, and I would likely face charges for signing erroneous documents. I jumped into another cab and made my way to the next prosecutor's office, conveniently located in an area far sketchier than the one I was originally mugged in. "What you are admitting to is a very serious offense," one officer said, nodding for me to follow him toward the curb. "If you file that complaint you'll be in pretty real trouble. It is cause for automatic arrest." He then lowered his voice, adding: "I would go home if I were you."… I decided to call it quits.”

Explaining complexity. Why is it so darn difficult to file a crime report in Mexico? Two reasons:

1. Design: in most countries, to report a crime, you just walk to the nearest police station, fill out a simple form, answer a few questions, and off you go. You won’t be bothered again unless a suspect is caught. Not so in Mexico. First, you don’t go to a police station, but to the Agencia del Ministerio Público, i.e., a branch of the state Attorney General’s Office that corresponds to the location where the crime took place. Second, you have to go through an hours-long grilling, while someone transcribes your every word. Third, a few days later, you have to return to ratify the initial report. Otherwise, the Ministerio Público (MP) will not open an averiguación previa (preliminary investigation) or a carpeta de investigación (investigation folder), i.e., no one will lift a finger. Some states (and the Federal District) have tried to make the process simpler by allowing victims to file the initial report online, but even in those cases, the aggrieved party needs to ratify the report in person at the Agencia.

2. Policy: as Andrea Noel describes very well in her piece, pretty much everyone in the system will try to deter you from filing a crime report. Why? Because politicians and law enforcement officials, abetted by part of the media and some NGOs, use crime reports as a performance metric. From their perspective, fewer crime reports means success, even if the underlying crime rate is going up. And that attitude seeps down the system. Employees at the Agencias del Ministerio Público know they will be judged negatively (and maybe even fired) if they let too many reports in. So they create all sorts of artificial obstacles. Read more.

Attack in western Mexico kills 15 police officers, wounds 5

AP: Gunmen ambushed a police convoy in the western state of Jalisco, killing 15 state police officers and wounding five as bullets riddled their vehicles in the deadliest single attack on Mexican police in recent memory.

The attack happened late Monday as the convoy traveled on a rural road between the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, the state capital, the Jalisco state prosecutors' office said. The death toll exceeded that of what had been the largest recent since attack on law enforcement, an assault that killed 12 federal police officers in neighboring Michoacan state in 2010. Read more. 

21 injured in clashes with police in Mexican state

AP:  Clashes between federal police and protesters organizing a concert in solidarity with 43 missing college students left at least 21 people injured and several cars in flames Sunday in the southern state of Guerrero.

A police official told The Associated Press that eight officers were injured, including five who were run over by a vehicle. Three others were beaten by protesting teachers, leaving one officer with "severe brain damage." The official was not authorized to talk to the press and spoke on condition of anonymity. Read more.

Tijuana gets help from federal cops

San Diego Reader: Members of a newly created and specially trained federal police force began arriving in Tijuana last week to help local officers combat a growing wave of violent crime.

According to press reports, about 100 members of the Gendarmería Nacional arrived in Tijuana on Thursday, September 4, the second contingent to be dispatched to the city; on September 1, 300 members of the elite federal police force arrived.  Read more. 

Mexico's Streets of Fire

Newsweek 
By Karla Zabludovsky
October 14 2013

As flames engulfed the policeman’s legs and arms, his comrades stood by watching, stunned. A steady barrage of rocks bounced off the wall of plastic shields flanking him.

By nighttime on October 2nd in Mexico City, 111 policemen, protesters and journalists had been injured and 102 people arrested during the annual march to commemorate a student massacre in 1968.

Street protests have long been a staple of Mexican politics and culture, a powerful outlet for millions of people who feel alienated from the political class. But over the last year, they have become more frequent, volatile and violent, analysts say, a response to major domestic policy shifts and growing alienation among the young and unemployed. The makeup of the protesters is also shifting, with men who refer to themselves as anarchists unleashing their fury during some marches.  Read more. 

Mexico Police Clash With Protesters Opposing Pena Nieto Plan

Bloomberg 
By Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin
October 3, 2013

Mexico City police blocked the entrance to the stock exchange yesterday as thousands rallied on the main business boulevard and clashed with officers to protest President Enrique Pena Nieto’s economic agenda.

Police said about 30,000 students, teachers and supporters closed off the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, with hundreds outside the Bolsa Mexicana (BOLSAA) and U.S. Embassy. Officers clad in riot gear used fire extinguishers and tear gas to defend themselves against protesters attacking with sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails in the capital’s historic center. Thirty two officers were injured and 102 protesters detained, Mexico City police said in a statement.  Read more. 

Protesters clash with police in Mexico City

Hurriyet Daily News 
Mexico City - Agence France-Presse


Protesters clashed with riot police in Mexico City on Wednesday, leaving dozens injured as thousands of people marched to mark the anniversary of a massacre of students in 1968.

The Red Cross said at least 51 people were injured as a group of masked protesters threw rocks and firebombs at police who used tear gas and threw stones back at them.

The city's public security department said 32 officers were injured by mostly masked and "self-declared anarchists." At least 97 people were detained.  Read more. 

President Obama's Mexico visit comes with backdrop of uncertainty

Los Angeles Times
By Shashank Bengali and Tracy Wilkinson
April 28, 2013

WASHINGTON — President Obama travels to Mexico this week amid signs that the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor's new government faces a new period of uncertainty after years of unprecedented closeness forged by the deadly war against Mexican drug cartels.

The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is said to be wary of the level of U.S. involvement in security affairs that characterized the administration of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. As a result, the Mexican government is expected to narrow U.S. involvement in its attorney general's office and Interior Ministry, the agencies that oversee police and intelligence, current and former U.S. and Mexican officials say.

Instead, Peña Nieto and officials from his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, want to concentrate U.S. participation in less sensitive but potentially profitable areas such as the economy.  Read more. 

In Mexico, self-defense squads are springing up against drug-fueled violence

The Washington Post: January 21, 2013

AYUTLA, Mexico — The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer.

Haltingly, he told how his cousin’s body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.


“There isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back,” said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as “just another representative of the people of the mountain.”

Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.

Vigilantes patrol a dozen or more towns in rural Mexico, the unauthorized but often tolerated edge of a growing movement toward armed citizen self-defense squads across the country.  Read more. 

Mexico’s new president to shift dialogue with U.S., from drugs to economy

Washington Post. By William Booth and Nick Miroff
November 30, 2012

MEXICO CITY — On the eve of his inauguration and his party’s return to power, Mexico’s incoming President Enrique Peña Nieto has vowed to reshape his country’s education, business and energy sectors in ways that could have profound effects on the United States.

A dynamic politician, from an old autocratic political party, Peña Nieto has said he wants to change the conversation about Mexico in the United States, away from headless torsos and drug cartels to trade and manufacturing.

Together with the United States, Peña Nieto and his top advisors say Mexico wants to drill more oil, assemble more cars and build “better, faster, smarter bridges” to grow the $1 billion a day commerce across the the 2,000-mile border, already the busiest crossing in the world.

Peña Nieto, who takes office Saturday, and his team say they are ready to help the Obama administration and U.S. Congress implement a guest worker program to regulate the flow of Mexican labor to the United States, where an estimated 6 million Mexicans live illegally. Read more.

Mexico to Purge State, Local Police of 65,000 Officers

InSight Crime: by Edward Fox, Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Mexico's government announced it will remove some 65,000 police officers from state and municipal ranks, a move which might boost the ranks of criminal groups seeking new recruits.

Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire stated during a visit to Washington D.C. that of the 180,000 state and municipal police who have had background checks, 65,000 (36 percent) were found to be unfit to serve, reported Informador.

There are currently a total of 430,000 state and municipal officers serving throughout Mexico. Poire added that the aim is to have carried out checks on every one by some point next year.

The reasons for the officers' pending dismissals were not given, nor were details on where they are currently based.

Though the announcement of a mass purge of state and municipal police is nothing new in Mexico, this latest round far exceeds the numbers and scale of similar actions taken in the past year. Much of them have been carried out at the local level, with Veracruz alone for example, seeing two rounds of dismissals last year, one of 980 officers and another of 800.

State and municipal officers are often regarded as the most vulnerable link in Mexico's fight against organized crime. Officers among these ranks are poorly paid, more so than their federal counterparts, thus increasing the chance that they will collude with criminal gangs as a way of supplementing their incomes.

Purging the forces of these corrupt elements, however, is a risky move. If these officers indeed have ties to gangs then removing them from paid work could push them further into the hands of criminal organizations. Jalisco state had to suspend a purge of its forces in May because gangs had posted recruitment ads for some 900 cops about to become unemployed. Read more.

Two PRI politicians killed within days in Mexico

Los Angeles Times Blogs: MEXICO CITY -- Two politicians from the soon-to-be-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, have been slain within two days of each other, sending a chilling reminder of the violent Mexico that awaits the new administration.

One of the killings, on Friday in the border state of Sonora, bore the hallmarks of an organized-crime hit: Eduardo Castro Luque, a congressman-elect in the state legislature, was shot to death by masked assassins who sped away on a motorcycle, authorities said.

The second slaying was more unusual: Jaime Serrano Cedillo, a congressman in the state of Mexico legislature, was stabbed to death Sunday as he walked down a street in Nezahualcoyotl, a sprawling district on the outskirts of Mexico City, authorities and local news reports said.

Both belonged to the PRI, which is returning to presidential power on Dec. 1 after the contentious election of Enrique Peña Nieto. Read more.

In Mexico, Rehearsing to Inject Drama Into the Courtroom

NY Times: Karla Zabludovsky. MEXICO CITY — The witness’s testimony was beginning to show cracks. He grew visibly tense, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the table harder.

Catalina León, the defense lawyer cross-examining the witness in a triple murder case, had zeroed in on his inconsistencies. Indeed, the witness had witnessed little at all, having been standing at an angle that made it impossible for him to identify one of the men arrested in the crime.

“We were having a fit of laughter because they didn’t expect it and were very angry,” said Ms. León of the opposing counsel during a break.

Such tough questioning may seem the bedrock of courtroom justice in the United States, but here in Mexico, where trials are decided by judges and rely almost entirely on written briefs, the lively exchange was a rare sight. Rare enough, in fact, that it was still just a rehearsal, part of a training session conducted by American and Mexican prosecutors as this country revamps its justice system. Read more.

Mexico Police Detained Over U.S. Embassy Vehicle Shooting

Reuters: MEXICO CITY, Aug 27 - Twelve Mexican federal police have been detained in an investigation of how two U.S. Embassy employees were wounded after being caught up in a police chase on the outskirts of the capital, authorities said on Monday.

Attorney General Marisela Morales said a judge had ordered the officers remain in custody for 40 days. They have not been charged with any offense in Friday's incident but she said prosecutors were looking into possible abuse of authority.

"We are not ruling out any kind of wrongdoing or any line of investigation," Morales told reporters. "We are asking for them to be detained so that we have the time necessary to conduct an exhaustive investigation." Read more. 

Mexico replaces airport police after shootout

CNN: Mexican authorities have replaced 348 federal police at the country's largest airport after a shootout there left three officers dead.

The officers have been moved from Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport to assignments in other states, federal police said in a statement Sunday. They were replaced by officers who went through a "double background check," the statement said.

The reshuffling comes nearly two months after a shooting sent passengers scrambling and left shattered glass on the ground near a food court at the airport. Read more.

17 held in attack, rapes on church camp in Mexico

AP: TOLUCA, Mexico — Police arrested 17 men Wednesday on suspicion of attacking youths and raping five women and girls who were on a church camping trip outside Mexico City, a brutal assault that shocked much of the country.

The attorney general for the State of Mexico, Alfredo Castillo, said 11 of the gang members were identified by some of the victims. In interrogation videos played for reporters, three of the suspects confessed that they sexually abused the women and girls because fellow attackers told them to.

Two of the suspects were local police officers and another had served in the military, Castillo said, speaking two days after authorities announced the arrest of a man who was described as not directly involved in the assault on the camp-out but who allegedly provided information to the assailants. Read more.

Alleged ringleader of Mexico City airport shootout captured

Reuters: Mexican federal police announced on Sunday the capture of the alleged ringleader of a group of police officers implicated in a drugs-related, deadly shootout with other officers in Mexico City's international airport last month.

A shackled Bogard Lugo, one of three officers suspected of involvement in the killing of three fellow federal police on June 25 in an airport food court, was presented at a press conference at police headquarters. Read more.

Drug Cartels Ready Themselves for Mexico Elections

AP: EMILIANO ZAPATA, Mexico – Elections in Mexico are Sunday and drug cartels have taken notice, but forget who is going to be president these cartels are interested in who is going to be mayor.

It's easier to influence a local election than an extensive well-financed national one.

It's a principal Mexican drug cartels swear by.

As Mexicans head to the ballot box Sunday, cartels are influencing Mexico's local elections by registering their votes with scare tactics, and cold hard cash to make sure whoever is elected doesn't interfere with their lucrative operations. Read more.