Nuevo Laredo police force is short on cops and brass
05/09/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Mariano Castillo
Express-News Border Bureau
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Things look bad, but they would have been worse if Reynaldo Luna, a police commander, hadn't had the fortitude to shoot back, two men chatting at city hall agreed.
Luna and five of his men had instinctively hit the floor of a popular seafood restaurant last week as a group of masked gunmen strafed the place with bullets during lunch.
Witnesses said Luna alone repelled the attack, firing his police-issue AR-15 assault rifle at the assailants, injuring one. The other officers were hit or grazed by bullets but are expected to recover.
Attacking six cops in broad daylight at a crowded restaurant looks bad, the men agreed, chatting inside city hall. But not as bad as six dead officers.
This seems a small consolation, but in Nuevo Laredo, a city whose half a million residents have been held hostage by warring drug cartels for almost two years, small consolations are big deals.
Especially when it comes to the city police force.
The beleaguered department has been without a chief since Omar Pimentel resigned a month and a half ago. No one wants the post, including the interim chief, Guillermo Landa, who prefers to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.
Adding to the leadership woes, attacks on police officers increased after Pimentel left, with three such incidents since mid-April increasing the fear in the department's ranks.
Two officers have died and seven injured in those attacks, including the shooting at the Titanic seafood restaurant.
The police department remains a shell of the 800-man force it was a year ago. Long infiltrated by corrupt elements who cooperated with drug traffickers for money or under threat, the force crossed a line last summer when a group of city officers engaged in a shootout with federal agents.
Officers were ordered off the streets for a shakeup that took several months. Around the same time, a new police chief, Alejandro Dominguez, was sworn in, pledging loudly to tackle the drug cartels.
Dominguez was shot to death a few hours after taking his oath of office.
Pimentel was sworn in a month later but kept a lower profile. At the behest of the federal government, most of the city's officers were fired for failing lie detector tests or alleged corruption.
When Pimentel left in March, citing job stress, Mayor Daniel Peña promised a smooth transition. It has been anything but.
The names of potential successors — as many as seven candidates, according to one city official — swirl around city hall corridors, but those on the force say no one is willing to take the job under the current circumstances.
Peña reportedly offered the post to Landa, the interim chief, who declined it. The mayor and Landa refused to comment for this report.
"It'll be a long time," one municipal officer said. "We could be without a police chief the rest of the year."
Another officer said he doesn't blame Landa for avoiding the spotlight.
"Shootouts, that's all there is in Nuevo Laredo," the officer said.
Raymundo Ramos, the president of a local human rights organization, said the recent spate of attacks on police is worrisome.
The attackers, presumably drug traffickers, "have burned the position. No one wants to be chief now," he said.
Municipal officers have been under fire since 2002 on two fronts: from the cartels, and from the federal government, Ramos said. Many of the officers fired last year were dismissed illegally, he said.
What's notable about the recent shooting victims is they all were relatively new officers, with at least one right out of the police academy, Ramos said.
This is leading some to believe the cartels, rather than hitting corrupt officers who picked the wrong side, are seeking to render the department, along with local government, ineffective.
"The police department is the strongest face of the administration, so it could be that they want to bother the mayor," Ramos said.
One of the young officers killed was Jesus de la Cruz, who was guarding the home of Guillermo Marquez, the assistant police chief, when unknown assailants drove by and opened fire.
"Worried? Yes, we're worried, but here we are working because there is no other way," Marquez said. "If someone in our line of work is not worried, it is because he does not have a notion of what is going on. We are well aware of what's going on."
The fear extends beyond the police ranks.
"All of us are scared," said Antonio Cardenas, a mechanic who said he heard two shootouts in two days, each one only a block from his small shop. "I run and hide when I hear the gunfire, just like everyone else."
Cardenas said he is both fatigued and frustrated by the unceasing violence.
"We can't keep living like this," he said.
But, Cardenas conceded, it could be worse.
-------------------------------------------------
mcastillo@express-news.net
-------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/stories/MYSA050906.8A.laredoforce.12a6887f.html
Mariano Castillo
Express-News Border Bureau
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Things look bad, but they would have been worse if Reynaldo Luna, a police commander, hadn't had the fortitude to shoot back, two men chatting at city hall agreed.
Luna and five of his men had instinctively hit the floor of a popular seafood restaurant last week as a group of masked gunmen strafed the place with bullets during lunch.
Witnesses said Luna alone repelled the attack, firing his police-issue AR-15 assault rifle at the assailants, injuring one. The other officers were hit or grazed by bullets but are expected to recover.
Attacking six cops in broad daylight at a crowded restaurant looks bad, the men agreed, chatting inside city hall. But not as bad as six dead officers.
This seems a small consolation, but in Nuevo Laredo, a city whose half a million residents have been held hostage by warring drug cartels for almost two years, small consolations are big deals.
Especially when it comes to the city police force.
The beleaguered department has been without a chief since Omar Pimentel resigned a month and a half ago. No one wants the post, including the interim chief, Guillermo Landa, who prefers to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.
Adding to the leadership woes, attacks on police officers increased after Pimentel left, with three such incidents since mid-April increasing the fear in the department's ranks.
Two officers have died and seven injured in those attacks, including the shooting at the Titanic seafood restaurant.
The police department remains a shell of the 800-man force it was a year ago. Long infiltrated by corrupt elements who cooperated with drug traffickers for money or under threat, the force crossed a line last summer when a group of city officers engaged in a shootout with federal agents.
Officers were ordered off the streets for a shakeup that took several months. Around the same time, a new police chief, Alejandro Dominguez, was sworn in, pledging loudly to tackle the drug cartels.
Dominguez was shot to death a few hours after taking his oath of office.
Pimentel was sworn in a month later but kept a lower profile. At the behest of the federal government, most of the city's officers were fired for failing lie detector tests or alleged corruption.
When Pimentel left in March, citing job stress, Mayor Daniel Peña promised a smooth transition. It has been anything but.
The names of potential successors — as many as seven candidates, according to one city official — swirl around city hall corridors, but those on the force say no one is willing to take the job under the current circumstances.
Peña reportedly offered the post to Landa, the interim chief, who declined it. The mayor and Landa refused to comment for this report.
"It'll be a long time," one municipal officer said. "We could be without a police chief the rest of the year."
Another officer said he doesn't blame Landa for avoiding the spotlight.
"Shootouts, that's all there is in Nuevo Laredo," the officer said.
Raymundo Ramos, the president of a local human rights organization, said the recent spate of attacks on police is worrisome.
The attackers, presumably drug traffickers, "have burned the position. No one wants to be chief now," he said.
Municipal officers have been under fire since 2002 on two fronts: from the cartels, and from the federal government, Ramos said. Many of the officers fired last year were dismissed illegally, he said.
What's notable about the recent shooting victims is they all were relatively new officers, with at least one right out of the police academy, Ramos said.
This is leading some to believe the cartels, rather than hitting corrupt officers who picked the wrong side, are seeking to render the department, along with local government, ineffective.
"The police department is the strongest face of the administration, so it could be that they want to bother the mayor," Ramos said.
One of the young officers killed was Jesus de la Cruz, who was guarding the home of Guillermo Marquez, the assistant police chief, when unknown assailants drove by and opened fire.
"Worried? Yes, we're worried, but here we are working because there is no other way," Marquez said. "If someone in our line of work is not worried, it is because he does not have a notion of what is going on. We are well aware of what's going on."
The fear extends beyond the police ranks.
"All of us are scared," said Antonio Cardenas, a mechanic who said he heard two shootouts in two days, each one only a block from his small shop. "I run and hide when I hear the gunfire, just like everyone else."
Cardenas said he is both fatigued and frustrated by the unceasing violence.
"We can't keep living like this," he said.
But, Cardenas conceded, it could be worse.
-------------------------------------------------
mcastillo@express-news.net
-------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/stories/MYSA050906.8A.laredoforce.12a6887f.html
posted by Cindy Lou- LoneStar Minutemen/Texas Minutemen at 10:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home