NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - The salmon-hued structure housing the city police headquarters appeared tranquil in the afternoon heat, guarded by white columns and swaying palms. On an archway, the last governor's bold exhortation to fight corruption was displayed in 2-foot-high letters.But few among the hundreds of blue-uniformed city police officers gathered in an open-air courtyard felt much like battling crime Tuesday. They seemed angry, resentful and bored. Their weapons had been taken away, their patrol cars locked up. Many were wondering whether they still had jobs.
Their new chief was assassinated June 8, hours after he took the oath of office. And 41 of their fellow officers were detained Saturday and flown to Mexico City for questioning after they had stopped a convoy of plainclothes federal investigators and wounded an agent. A presidential spokesman accused the police force of being in the pocket of two powerful drug cartels fighting to control the smuggling routes that run from this city of 500,000 into Dallas and beyond...
Since the Saturday confrontation with the agents of the Federal Investigative Agency, or AFI, the city's 750-member police force has been disarmed, forced to undergo drug tests and ordered to remain at headquarters. State police, federal agents and army troops performed law enforcement duties in Nuevo Laredo on Tuesday.
While their personnel files were examined and drug-testing samples analyzed at headquarters, many of the officers spent the day reading newspapers, consuming cold drinks and waiting for the word to go back to work. Many, such as Lt. Florencio Flores Guzman, 60, expressed sadness over the federal crackdown. But he also looked for a silver lining in it. A purge of corrupt officers, he said, may help restore public confidence in the force. Officer Martha Evelia Rivera, who was standing next to Flores, agreed. Salaries of police average just $600 a month, a wage that has not increased in several years, she said.
"The pay is very low, and it should be higher," she said. "That's the reason police ask for money — the salary." Still, she thinks the federal investigation is necessary "so the bad ones will go." And how many of the 750 police are bad?
"Five hundred," she replied.
As the police officers remained inside headquarters or at smaller satellite stations around town, state police investigated two new homicides, including a 29-year-old bus driver shot five times. The body of another man was found in a car that had been set afire.
Local newspapers reported that the two homicides were the latest of the nearly 70 reported since the beginning of the year. The violence was sparked by a turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel.
Laredo has been spared much of the violence. Still, U.S. agents working the international bridges connecting the two cities have heightened security. At Bridge No. 1 in downtown Laredo, all U.S. Customs officers on duty wore blue body armor over their uniforms. One agent said they had been ordered to wear the bulletproof vests until the situation in Nuevo Laredo stabilizes.