Drug gangs exacting heavy toll on officers
By Sandra Dibble
STAFF WRITER
November 1, 2008
Samuel Martines was the first to die.
Heavily armed gunmen ambushed the Rosarito Beach police officer as he headed home, firing repeatedly at his 1995 Jeep Cherokee, investigators said.
Within a month of the Sept. 25 assault, six other Rosarito Beach officers were shot dead in similar gangland style.
The small municipal police department is reeling from the attacks, and investigators said former and current police officers are involved. Two
officers have been arrested, and at least a dozen others have left the force, out of fear or frustration.
As drug gangs have battled for control of the Tijuana and Rosarito Beach region, the police who work for them – and perhaps some who won't – have
become increasingly targeted. The small force in Rosarito, on a major drug-trafficking route, is no match for the well-financed, powerfully armed
traffickers, and the recent weeks have been especially telling.
Rosarito Beach, with a population of about 120,000, has 217 allotted police positions, but with the most recent deaths and defections, it's unclear
how many are still on the force. Mayor Hugo Torres reports 170, a high-ranking officer said this week it was 150, and the police chief preferred not
to say, for security reasons.
Officers could be targeted for a range of reasons by drug traffickers – for working for the wrong side, for failing to fulfill a commitment, for
refusing to cooperate with traffickers. Some are simply in the wrong place.
“The danger is everywhere,” Jesús Echave, a motorcycle officer, said last week as he joined four dozen fellow officers at City Hall in confronting the
mayor and police chief to demand better weapons and working conditions.
Reinforcements began arriving last week, and the mayor announced that the military and state police would help patrol the city. A $235,000
contribution from the state will allow the department to buy badly needed equipment, from helmets to bulletproof vests to patrol vehicles.
But in Rosarito Beach and other municipalities along drug corridors, the biggest struggle is often from within: rooting out corrupt officers who
cooperate with drug traffickers, either because of terror or ambition.
Torres vowed to clean up the department when he took office Dec. 1. Now, 11 months later, his battle is clearly far from over.
Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, Baja California's attorney general, said investigators are “finding the tip of the iceberg” as they uncover a network of
former and active officers linked to organized crime. He plans to turn over his findings to federal organized-crime investigators.
In the meantime, many police officers in the city have been saying they're afraid, even if they aren't involved with criminal groups, because they
could be assigned to a partner who is and could end up in the line of fire, said José Manuel Ciprés Tinoco, a councilman who oversees security issues.
More than 400 police officers at all levels of government have been killed across Mexico this year, according to a tally by the Trans-Border Institute
at the University of San Diego. Earlier this year, three Mexican police chiefs along the border with Texas and New Mexico sought asylum in the United
States, fearful of becoming targets after mass desertions of their officers.
Of some 300,000 police in Mexico, about 70 percent are municipal officers, said Arturo Arango, a public security analyst who works for a Mexico
City-based think tank, the Citizens Institute for Studies on Insecurity.
In Mexico, municipal police officers are responsible for enforcing traffic laws and watching out for other administrative infractions such as public
misconduct. They're often the first on the scene when larger crimes occur that require them to notify state and federal agencies.
Low salaries, few benefits and a system that pressures them to extort citizens and pay a portion to their superiors has made change almost impossible
to achieve, Arango said. He believes the only alternative is “starting from zero” with new, well-paid, well-trained recruits and offering benefits
such as housing.
Investigators said the violence in Rosarito Beach, which has claimed 30 lives since late September, is largely the result of a power struggle centered
in Rosarito and neighboring Tijuana between factions of the Arellano Félix cartel. Tijuana has registered close to 170 deaths in that time period,
according to state figures.
Tijuana, with a 2,300-member police department, more than 10 times larger than Rosarito's, has lost five officers in the time Rosarito has lost seven.
Rosarito's troubles predate the Torres administration. A previous police chief, Carlos Bowser, was shot to death in 2005, and a state police officer
was among those accused of his slaying. Federal investigators said Bowser had refused to “make arrangements” with organized crime.
Vowing to eradicate corruption, Torres named Jorge Eduardo Montero, 42, a retired military captain, as his secretary of public safety, a position akin
to police chief. Less than three weeks after taking the job, Montero was the target of an assassination attempt; he survived, but his bodyguard was
killed.
A dozen active members of the force were named as suspects.
Torres estimated in a recent interview that “about half” of the untrustworthy officers have been removed.
Since the assassination attempt, the slight, bespectacled Montero doesn't move without heavy protection, working out of a second-floor office at City
Hall, away from the main police station in northern Rosarito.
Montero said he feels terror at times but has persisted in his campaign to rid the department of corrupt police. Nearly 60 officers have left since he
took over.
“Organized crime relies on the support that it receives, and who are the principal supporters? The police – federal, state and municipal,” Montero
said. “When a police force is honest and has no outside commitments, has a strong organization, I feel it could confront organized crime.”
For now, Montero said, outside help is essential, especially from the federal government, if there's to be any hope of gaining control over the drug
traffickers. “We haven't been receiving the same level of help as other cities in the state. . . . They've been far more focused on Tijuana.”
Martines was a veteran police officer hired in Rosarito in 2003, after stints in Tijuana and the state prison system, where he was a shift commander
at the La Mesa Penitentiary.
Montero said Martines initially appeared trustworthy. He was named the officer commander of the Primo Tapia substation south of town, one of the most
difficult and sensitive patrol areas, where investigators say drugs are unloaded in remote coastal areas and transported inland.
But after receiving “delicate information” about the officer, Montero transferred him back downtown, naming him a shift commander. As the chief's
doubts grew, he ordered Martines demoted to patrol officer Sept. 25.
The officer was off duty and unarmed, but still in uniform, when he was shot to death hours later.
In the following weeks, six more officers were killed.
Manuel DNaz Ayala was shot while guarding a municipal park Oct. 14; Javier Gelista Uribe was driving home on the free road to Tijuana Oct. 16; Jesús
Rivera RamNrez and Froilán Olivares were on patrol Oct. 19; and Luis Arturo Granillo Cordova and José Luis Franco Gómez were in a car together, having
just come off their shift Oct. 23.
Moreno said Martines' death was ordered by a former officer named Cesar Beltrán, who left the force in March and was believed to be working for a
breakaway faction of the Arellano Félix cartel – until he also was shot to death last month.
Moreno wouldn't discuss details of the case. Others with knowledge of the investigation but who asked not to be identified said the first three
victims – Martines, DNaz Ayala and Gelista Uribe – and Beltrán had worked for drug trafficker Eduardo GarcNa Simental, who operates in the area.
The deaths of the last two officers remain under investigation, but Moreno said the fourth and fifth victims are considered a case of mistaken
identity: They had borrowed another officer's patrol car that day.
The morning after the last two deaths, City Hall was flooded with nearly 50 officers. They were frightened and angry, and complained that they must
check out their weapons when they leave while criminals are always armed.
“You have to believe in us,” one officer said indignantly. “Because we are officers; we are not criminals.”
Farther south, at the Primo Tapia substation, officers were visibly nervous, grabbing their weapons and crouching for protection one recent afternoon
each time a passing vehicle slowed down.
“When it comes, I don't know where it will come from,” one officer said. |
