Category Archives: Police brutality

Denise Dresser on Guadalajara plaza … POLICE arrested in the rape/robberies near Mexico City..

For those who may have objected to my comments about the ludicrous Google tour of Juarez with the Federal Police, see this translation from Borderland Beat of a Proceso article by Denise Dresser… and also, Several POLICE are among the perpetrators in the rape and robbery attack on the church camp outside of Mexico City. I received a complaint yesterday from a person on the list [I asked permission to post the complaint but got no reply] saying that I was wrong to place all responsibility for the Juarez violence on the federal police…something I did not do. However, since the google piece opens with a breathless description of their fearless and skilled escorts–policia federal–I mentioned the PF in my commentary.  I never said, nor do I believe, that the PF are the only killers…nor do I blame them for anything more than their share of the violence. As I’ve said in numerous postings on the list:

“…though the military sits at the pinnacle of the impunity pyramid in Mexico, it is one of many powerful groups that abduct, torture and kill Mexicans. Drug trafficking gangs kill. Street gangs kill. Municipal, state and federal police kill. And drug cartel operatives often kill from the inside of these security forces. As former Chihuahua governor, Jose Reyes Baeza, declared in March 2008,

“”All of the public security agencies are infiltrated—all of them, pure and simple…” The governor predicted a “return to normalcy” as soon as these agencies could be cleaned up. Five years on, more than 10,000 people in the city of Juárez alone are dead and so far this year, another 3.4 people are added to the tally each day.”

Note that it is the former Chihuahua governor stating that ALL of the agencies are corrupt…I’ve talked to so many people, both in Juarez and now living in exile in the US who have experienced or been witnesses to corruption and killing by the federal police, the army, the municipal and state police, that I find it the height of gullibility to assume that the federal police are the good guys–as the piece about the Google visit does. I think that the Google execs were probably invited to Juarez by powerful people who think it will give them some cachet… The Juarez press did not cover the Google visit hat happened two months ago, but Diario de El Paso did have an article about the Washington Post piece on their front page today: Surgió en Juárez sistema de denuncia vs narco de Google

Links to Commentary on Wal-Mart’s Alleged Bribery Cover-up

Go to the link for Pan American Post to see the reports in major US papers
highlighted. In contrast to the “cost of doing business in Mexico” yawns
and who cares? Does anyone challenge the basic assumption that Walmart
benefits ordinary people in Mexico or elsewhere? Is it an unquestionable
benefit to provide cheap products made by people paid terrible wages in
China, India, Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere to people in
Mexico (and many in the US also) who have seen domestic manufacturing
destroyed by free trade policies over the past 18 years? Does anyone think
that small business people in Mexico benefit from a rotten system that
requires street vendors and sellers of second hand clothes and other goods
to pay bribes to get a spot in a flea market, or worse, who must pay
protection money to keep from being beat up or killed?  Small businesses in
Juarez now are being destroyed by extortion and the cruelty of the criminal
gangs (often allied with the police) that threaten and carry out threats by
burning and killing. molly

 

man burned inside his home in Juarez was scheduled to testify against federal police kidnappers

*Here is a story from Saturday that I missed.  I did have the initial
report of the man burned inside of his house, but, according to a report in
the EPTimes and also a followup in El Diario, the dead man was the person
who reported abuses, kidnapping and extortion and drug dealing carried out
by federal police in Juarez and who testified against them at the time
(this was in September 2011) had left the city for his safety. He had
returned to testify in a court hearing to be held this week, but was killed
— stabbed and then burned to death inside of his house in the Margaritas
neighborhood — on Friday. The original articles from El Diario and Norte
from September 2011 are also posted below from the INPRO database. The
Diario article includes the unnamed person’s testimony of his kidnapping
and near death at the hands of the federal police officers who are now said
to be in custody. But, it is likely that without this person’s testimony
that was scheduled for this week in court, the serious charges against the
federal police criminals will be dropped and it is likely that they will be
released. That is how the system works.  What will be interesting is if
that DOES NOT happen since at least in this case, there is some followup in
the press and with the human rights office in Juarez.  molly*

Click here for the original posts from El Diario and Norte

The Deadliest Place In Mexico Who’s killing the people of the Juarez Valley?–Melissa del Bosque in the Texas Observer

To reach the deadliest place in Mexico you take Carretera Federal 2, a well-paved stretch of highway that begins at the outskirts of Juarez, east for 50 miles along the Rio Grande, passing through cotton and alfalfa fields until you reach the rural Juarez Valley, said to have the highest murder rate in the country, if not the world.

The Juarez Valley is a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande. Farmers proudly say it was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the booming growth of Juarez’s factories in the 1990s left farmers downstream with nothing but foul-smelling sludge to irrigate their fields. After that, the only industry that thrived was drug smuggling. Because of the valley’s sparse population and location along the Rio Grande’s dried up riverbed, a person can easily drive or walk into Texas loaded down with marijuana and cocaine.

For decades, this lucrative smuggling corridor, or “plaza,” was controlled by the Juarez cartel. In 2008, Mexico’s largest, most powerful syndicate—the Sinaloa cartel, run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman—declared war on the Juarez cartel and moved in to take over the territory. The federal government sent in the military to quell the violence. Instead the murder rate in the state of Chihuahua exploded. The bloodshed in the city of Juarez made international news. It was dubbed the “deadliest city in the world.”

Click here to read more

Followup report on child wounded in police shooting, KHOU 11 and El Diario

An article in El Diario states that Sonia Tapia and her son
have left Juarez. The boy is in a hospital in El Paso and the family
does not plan to return to Juarez, in part due to fear of reprisals.
The article says that many other victims of violence would like to
leave Mexico but are unable to. Sonia Tapia and her son are US
citizens.

Juarez police officers investigated after shooting at American motherand child

 

Human Rights News–Border City Police Under Fire

FNS has a very good summary of recent police brutality
incidents in Juarez. I have been away from the computer for a couple
of days, but Diario reports 3 killed in Juarez on Friday and I believe
there were also at least 3 yesterday. I will report later. The
headline on the front page of Diario this morning:

Atropellan municipales a una persona y tratan de ocultar los hechos

Also, Juarez journalists denounced the public climate of insecurity
and lack of guarantees for carrying out their work due to the
aggressive behavior of the municipal police…

Denuncian periodistas clima de inseguridad y falta de garantías

 

Boy shot by police Monday in serious condition

The child shot and seriously injured by municipal police on Monday in
Juarez is a US citizen as is his mother, Sonia Tapia Cisneros. The
police say they attempted to stop Tapia’s vehicle, she says that she
kept driving because she feared she was being carjacked. After the
child was shot and wounded, the police detained Tapia, but apparently
drove around for 4 hours before formally charging her with a crime.
According to the article she is still in custody and charged with
attempted murder. She has not been allowed to see her son who has had
multiple surgeries on his arms, abdomen and hip. He will probably be
disabled for life. Sonia Tapia is a school teacher and is the
director of the private Issac Newton school in Juarez. According to
the article, the US Consulate has been called in to help the mother
and son leave the country.

The two police officers involved in the shooting of the child and the
arrest of Ms. Tapia are also under investigation.

So, far, I have not seen anything in the El Paso press about this
case. Molly

Policías balean a su hijo …y todavía la acusan

Balean policías a maestra y a su hijo en Juárez; ambos son ciudadanos de EU