BajaNews
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Feds order Tijuana cops to disarm; patrols have halted
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070105/news_1n5tjc...
January 5, 2007
Under federal orders to disarm, members of the city's 2,300-officer police force turned in their weapons and stopped patrolling yesterday...
The surprise directive from Mexico City came a day after President Felipe Calderón ordered Operation Tijuana, a major offensive against organized
crime in the city. More than 3,000 soldiers and federal agents are being sent there with the aim of tackling the city's crime problems...
[Edited on 7-4-2007 by BajaNomad]
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BajaNews
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Tijuana police abandon posts
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-tijuana...
After federal agents confiscate the force's weapons, officers decide going back on patrol would be too risky.
By Richard Marosi
January 5, 2007
TIJUANA — The municipal police force in this troubled border city walked off the job Thursday after soldiers and federal agents ordered its members to
turn over their weapons in connection with homicide investigations.
The surprising turn of events came two days after Mexican President Felipe Calderon dispatched 3,300 federal troops and police to the city in an
effort to combat violence linked to drug cartels.
Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon acknowledged in a radio interview Thursday that local and state police were being compromised by narco-traffickers, and
he said government salaries could not compete with the financial rewards offered by drug dealers.
Members of the 2,300-strong police force turned over more than 2,100 guns and semiautomatic assault rifles at police headquarters. But police
officials decided it would be too dangerous to patrol unarmed, especially because more than a dozen officers have been killed recently in drug-related
attacks.
"The police are not patrolling the city. They won't work without their weapons," said Fernando Bojorquez, a spokesman for the city's top police
official, Secretary of Public Safety Luis Javier Algorri Franco.
Among those whose weapons were taken were the bodyguards for the mayor and for Algorri, a civilian who does not carry a weapon.
A spokesman for the federal attorney general said the military had ordered the confiscation of the police weapons to investigate whether any had been
used in suspicious killings. He gave no details.
It was not immediately known how many homicides the federal officials were investigating. More than 300 people were killed in the city in 2006.
Police walked out late in the afternoon, and no major disturbances had been reported by late evening.
The soldiers and federal agents set up checkpoints Thursday across the city and began patrolling downtown, the Zona Rio commercial district and some
tough neighborhoods.
Dozens of disarmed officers remained outside City Hall after 9 p.m., eating chicken tacos and wondering what would happen next.
The next shift, due in at 7 a.m., was ordered to report to the plaza, and police will remain there until their weapons are returned, Bojorquez said.
"We're defenseless against organized crime. Without our weapons, we can't do anything," said one officer, who declined to be identified.
It appeared that municipal police were still on duty at jails.
Tijuana and the surrounding communities are a key battleground for control of drug smuggling routes into the United States. The city and the state of
Baja California have suffered increased kidnappings and killings of drug traffickers, police officers, business owners and bystanders.
The federal enforcement effort, dubbed Operation Tijuana, comes three weeks after Calderon sent troops to his Pacific Coast home state of Michoacan,
where more than 80 people were arrested, more than 1,300 acres of marijuana crops were destroyed and over 6 tons of harvested plants were seized.
Calderon has said that federal forces are needed to combat Mexico's drug violence because of corruption and incompetence among local and state police.
In a television interview Thursday, federal Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said: "The object of this type of operation is not the surgical capture of
big leaders. Sure, we're going after the big capos, but that's not the purpose of this kind of operation, which in this case is the recovery of
geography and tranquillity."
Medina Mora said Calderon's campaign against drug violence would move to other states in coming weeks.
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DianaT
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This is going to be real interesting to follow.
Diane
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JESSE
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Its a good move. The good cops can't do anything anyways because they can get killed by their dirty counterparts, and the dirty cops are out of the
street and not spying on the soldiers.
Lets wait and see
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David K
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Wow.... Tijuana under (almost) martial law!
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fdt
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| Quote: | Originally posted by David K
Wow.... Tijuana under (almost) martial law! |
Not even "almost", a smart move from the federal government. There has been a sign of tranquility all over the city.
A lot of bad stuff has been going on and a lot points to the city police force. If the ferderal government is doing an investigation on them, so be
it, in Tijuana there are state police, federal police and aditional state police have been asigned from Mexicali, as for the legal system it's all the
same.
Been all over town today and saw very few soldiers, same as usual and did notice citizens behaving as they should in a city of 2 or3 or4 million.
Strange, but there does'nt seem to be any alarm because cops have no guns. Most coments I've seen is that they dont use them anyway, that the soldiers
should have taken theire cellulars also. But in no way or similarity is it martial law 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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fdt
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Last night police were gathered at city hall, today they moved to an empty lot in front of Mercado Hidalgo and now they are back at theire respective
posts / delegaciones. They don't know if its to get theire guns back.
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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David K
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I hope it all works okay Fernando!
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fdt
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It will
One of the persons attending tomorrows toy drive comented that because of the situation with the city police not having guns, maybe he would rather be
cloistered in a wine cellar sipping away and just skip the comand center. I think that since México is a free country I can not attempt to change his
mind and I might even show some empathy and join him 
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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BajaNews
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Tijuana police return -- without their weapons
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fg-tijuana6jan06,0,1161...
By Richard Marosi, Sam Enriquez and Héctor Tobar
January 6, 2007
TIJUANA — Disarmed municipal police officers patrolled alongside armed state police Friday, a sight that brought some comfort to many in this border
city where municipal police often are equated with corruption and drug-related violence.
Municipal officers, their holsters empty, directed traffic and made the rounds a day after stopping work in response to being stripped of their
weapons by the Mexican military.
The military operation in Tijuana and a similar incursion in the southern state of Michoacan, some political analysts say, have been a political boon
to President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December, allowing him to project an image of strength and decisiveness.
Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City analyst who has written extensively on the country's drug wars, said that though Calderon's crackdown in Tijuana had "zero
chance of stopping the buying and selling of drugs," it could help limit the number of drug-related killings in the city.
There were more than 300 slayings in Tijuana last year.
"What he's saying is that there are some things that won't be permitted," Chabat said. "You can't be cutting people's heads off. It's a question of
image. You can't allow Tijuana to look like a civil war in Africa."
Mexican and U.S. authorities say some Tijuana police officers are members of drug cartels, and several have been arrested over the years.
Some Tijuana kidnapping victims have said that police officers took part in their abductions. The city has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the
world.
A sprawling metropolis of about 1.5 million people, Tijuana was bustling as usual Friday, and there were no signs of social unrest or public disorder
two days after more than 3,500 soldiers and federal agents started arriving as part of Operation Tijuana.
The military ordered members of the 2,300-strong municipal police force to turn in their weapons for an investigation to see whether any could be
linked to homicides or other crimes. More than 2,000 firearms, most of them 9-millimeter handguns but also automatic weapons and shotguns, are being
inspected.
Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon said in an interview that he feared putting unarmed police at risk and ordered them off the streets Thursday after
receiving assurances from Hector Sanchez Gutierrez, the general in charge of Operation Tijuana, that his troops would maintain order.
There were no major incidents in the 18 hours without municipal police, but there were complaints that authorities had failed to respond to some
traffic accidents.
At a holding facility in the city's red light district, Municipal Judge Oscar Gonzalez Valdez said he had freed some detainees — in custody mostly on
alcohol-related offenses — because there were no police officers to take them to the main jail across town.
The officers may get their weapons back within two weeks, Tijuana officials said, but many residents weren't demanding swift action.
"This is stupendous," said Alfredo Arias, the manager of a restaurant in the tough neighborhood of Colonia Libertad that was riddled by hundreds of
bullets last year in a shootout between masked men and federal agents.
Arias, like many other residents and some analysts, say police officers' weapons are not always accounted for and often are lent to criminal rings.
"This will obligate them to take care of their weapons," Arias said.
Alberto Capella, president of Tijuana's citizens advisory council on public safety, said disarming the police had widespread public support.
"In some ways it's a necessary evil … part of the cleansing we need to improve the department," he said.
Federal and state officials said the operation had led to the arrest of seven people who authorities said were linked to the attempted assassination
last year of the former head of public safety in Baja California state.
Tijuana residents have felt the military presence: Traffic backed up at several checkpoints on major streets leading into and out of the city.
But army or no army, thousands of people lined a two-mile route to see the city's annual Three Kings parade Friday night.
Plastered on several floats, including a giant drum banged by a toy soldier, was "Caliente," the name of the racetrack and betting enterprise owned by
Hank Rhon. Trucks pulled floats carrying flatbeds decorated with Christmas trees, giant wrapped gifts and a miniature Bethlehem. Two wise men rode
camels and the third an elephant. Legions of gladiators led a contingent of shepherd girls.
All the while, police helicopters hovered overhead.
Gregorio Martinez, 55, who has lived in Tijuana for 35 years, said the military operation was a bold move.
"I bet the number of assaults goes down until the police get their guns back. I feel pretty safe right now," he said.
But Martinez, like others, wonders whether the operation will have a long-term effect.
A similar feeling swept Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border last year when then-President Vicente Fox sent federal police and troops to replace local
officers, notorious for their brutality and corruption.
For the first weeks and months, residents said they felt a weight lifted off their shoulders. The feeling didn't last.
By summer, the last of the federal officers were gone, leaving the border town in the hands of a police department operating with only half of its 600
positions filled. Robberies and kidnappings have increased, as have homicides.
The recent crackdown in Michoacan has been a flop, said one U.S. law enforcement source, saying the deployment failed to turn up any significant drug
seizures or arrests.
The drug traffickers in Michoacan, the source said, fled to nearby Jalisco before the operation began, prompting jokes that they had scattered like
c-ckroaches.
"Some of the locals were calling it Operacion Cucaracha," the source said.
Some observers said Tijuana's criminal kingpins had left the city. One police official joked that they probably were skiing at Big Bear.
For Hank Rhon, who is planning to run for governor of Baja California this year, the crackdown has hurt his political fortunes, some experts said.
"The sight of Tijuana policemen being disarmed by the Mexican army was an embarrassment," said Jesus Silva Herzog, a Mexico City political analyst.
"This is a very serious blow to Hank Rhon and to his political aspirations in the state."
The mayor discounted suggestions that the operation was an attempt by Calderon to sabotage his gubernatorial bid. He said Calderon was following
through on a request he made last year for more federal help in Tijuana.
Hank Rhon has acknowledged that the municipal police force is riddled with corruption, but so are other state and federal agencies, he said.
Francisco Ramirez Navarro, a transit police officer in Tijuana, echoed the mayor's sentiments. He said the real criminals in Tijuana wouldn't be found
in the police department.
"Why don't they start investigating at the top?" he said.
Some residents agreed.
"I know plenty of honorable cops," said flower vendor Baltazar Brito. Some take bribes, he said, but it's because they are not paid adequate salaries.
Brito's downtown flower stand is at an intersection that was the scene of two shootouts last year that left one police officer dead and several
wounded. The city's top homicide investigator and a deputy police chief narrowly escaped assassination attempts in the shootouts.
Bullets gouged and pockmarked curbs, storefronts and billboards over a 50-yard area. Brito survived one attack by ducking under his cart and hiding
with his rabbits.
His crime-weary attitude reflects a fatalistic viewpoint among many Tijuana residents. He doesn't expect the violence to stop, but that's not always a
bad thing, he said.
"Sometimes for peace to prevail, there must be shootouts," he said.
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BajaNews
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Mexican navy patrols off Tijuana in drugs swoop
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05276333.htm
06 Jan 2007
By Noel Randewich
TIJUANA, Mexico, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Mexican navy ships patrolled off Pacific beaches near the U.S. border on Friday and soldiers in trucks cruised the
streets of Tijuana in an anti-drugs crackdown in one of the country's toughest cities.
Helicopters hovered over downtown Tijuana, just south of the U.S. city of San Diego, and three ships sat off the nearby surfing beach of Popotla
guarding the coast where traffickers offload South American cocaine headed to the United States.
Tijuana, a favorite weekend party town for U.S. college kids, has been caught up in a war between rival drugs gangs that killed some 2,000 people last
year. The city records a murder almost every day and two kidnappings a week on average.
More than 4,000 soldiers, sailors, federal and state police poured into Tijuana this week as part of a state-by-state war on organized crime and drug
cartels by new Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Many of Tijuana's 2,300 municipal police angrily walked off the job late on Thursday after federal forces hauled their weapons off for inspection in a
hunt for officers in cahoots with crime gangs.
The seizure of some 1,600 guns underscored a widespread belief that many low-paid local police work with criminals.
The police were bitter about losing their weapons.
"Tijuana is a very troubled city. Without guns, we are not prepared for these confrontations," said Enrique Salvida, an officer at a local police
station where many were still handing over pistols and automatic rifles to the army.
EMPTY HOLSTERS
Mexico's municipal police are so badly equipped that even honest officers are widely considered ineffective.
Police who returned to work on Friday patrolled without arms. Motorcycle cops did their rounds with empty holsters.
Tijuana is caught in a fight between the local Arellano Felix cartel and rival smugglers from the northwestern state of Sinaloa.
Eight people were arrested in the operation and some cars seized but no major drug trafficker was detained.
Later on Friday, the presence of federal police and soldiers in the city was thin and locals doubted the operation would dampen violence in the long
run.
"All they are doing is putting on a show and scaring people," said Antonio Juarez, 30, selling jewelry on Revolucion street.
Calderon, who has made fighting drug gangs a priority since coming to power on Dec. 1, last month sent a force of 7,000 to the western state of
Michoacan which saw some 500 gangland-style killings last year.
Nine bodies were found on Thursday and Friday in shallow graves in a disused warehouse in Uruapan, a town in the western state of Michoacan that has
been scene of frequent drug fights.
The bodies had their hands tied behind their backs.
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bancoduo
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TJ police being harassed
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/22870.html
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