Kidnaping by Mexican police caught on video

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/kidnaping-mexican-police-caught-video-180511895.html

By MARK STEVENSON | Associated Press – 2 hrs 52 mins ago

MEXICO CITY (AP) — There it was on video: Five heavily armed policemen barge into a hotel in western Mexico before dawn and march out with three handcuffed men in underwear.

But police weren't making an arrest. Prosecutors say they apparently were taking orders from criminals. Just hours after the three were seized, they were found asphyxiated and beaten to death.

Mexicans have become inured to lurid tales of police collaboration with narcotics gangs during 5 ½ years of a drug war that has cost more than 47,500 lives. But seldom can they actually see it occur, and the video broadcast on national television was a shocker.

"One assumes that in some cities ... the municipal police work for the drug cartels," said Jorge Chabat an expert on security and drug trafficking at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. "But what is different here is that there is a video. It's not the same thing to imagine that this going on, and to see it."

The Jan. 20 video released by prosecutors late Wednesday shows a police truck pulling up to the hotel in the city of Lagos de Moreno, quickly followed by a pickup carrying four armed men in civilian clothing. A city policeman carrying an assault rifle runs over to their truck and is given what appears to be a list. Then he and his fellow officers trot into the hotel and present the list at the reception desk, apparently asking what rooms the men are staying in.

In the next segment of the video, the victims are trotted out of the hotel in their underwear with their hands cuffed behind their backs. One is being hustled along by a man in civilian dress, who stuffs him into a patrol car. The gunmen — police are investigating whether they belong to the Jalisco New Generation drug gang — appear to be calling the shots throughout, with the police officers serving as gofers.

The police then watch and wait in front of the hotel while the men's luggage and vehicle are stolen. Finally, the police truck carrying the victims follows the gunmen as they drive away in the own pickup and the stolen vehicle.

While the kidnapping and murder occurred in January, and the faces of several officers were clearly seen on the videos, the officers were not detained until June 6, when soldiers and state police raided a local police station. And they still have not been formally charged with any crime.

"It took time to obtain the video tapes, to do the investigation, and to get the arrest warrants," said Jalisco state prosecutor's spokesman Lino Gonzalez said Thursday. "We didn't have the information."

In any case, the release of the dramatic images comes less than three weeks before national and state elections in which security is a major issue. Critics accuse President Felipe Calderon of setting off a bloodbath with his strategy against gangs, while his party's presidential candidate, Josefina Vazquez, has suggested her opponents are ready to compromise with the cartels.

Jalisco is governed by Calderon's party. The man who was mayor of Lagos de Moreno when the video was shot is now a rival party's candidate for the state legislature.

Gonzalez said that so far, seven policemen and officials of the municipal police force of Lagos de Moreno have been detained pending charges. And state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said the four men in civilian clothing also have been detained separately in other cases. He declined to say what gang they might belong to.

There are still mysteries surrounding the case, including whether the gunmen thought the victims were members of a rival drug cartel. The victims were from the northern state of Coahuila, where the hyperviolent Zetas cartel has been battling the Sinaloa cartel, allies of the local Jalisco Nueva Generacion gang.

Gonzalez said the victims, before checking into the hotel, had been briefly detained by police at the local jail for a minor infraction. They paid a fine and were released. But while in custody, "They said something indiscrete," Gonzalez said. "Apparently they said something like 'We're from Coahuila, and we're part of the mafia.'"

It's not unusual in Mexico for detainees to boast about their connections, hoping to press corrupt police to release them.

This time, however, it backfired.

"Apparently, somebody at the jail heard the comment, and reported it to the real criminals," Gonzalez said.

Coronado told local media the men had claimed to be Zetas.

Gonzalez said it has never been proved the kidnapped men were gang members. They may have just been in Lagos de Moreno collecting the rent on a ranch, and they are being treated simply as victims.

Chabat noted that corruption has reached so deep that in 2010 in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, seven local police officers in the town of Santiago were arrested on allegations they were working for the Zetas drug gang and that they kidnapped and killed the town's Mayor, Edelmiro Cavazos, in retaliation for his attempts to cut corruption.

"There are police officers who kill the mayors they are supposed to protect," Chabat said. But this week's video "is cause for despair," he said. "It gives rise to the feeling that this is not going to be solved in the short term."

[X Factor 1,112]

Crazy, crazy, crazy . Our police officers seem as angels compared to them.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Crazy, crazy, crazy . Our police officers seem as angels compared to them.

The US State Dept. just put a new travel warning for Mexico a few days ago. That place is a war zone.

[TBoneTX 46,125]

The US State Dept. just put a new travel warning for Mexico a few days ago. That place is a war zone.

The State Dept. normally doesn't know jack, and the lamestream media know even less. I'd go back, in a heartbeat, to the many border towns that I've visited.

[Dan and Judy 614]

been there, done that, not going back anytime soon

[웃 910]

Would love to go back if my bank account permits.

Extremely safe. Way safer than most US inner cities.

Edited June 16, 2012 by ☠

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/mexicos-drug-war-rocks-u-expat-stronghold-001945396.html

Mexico's drug war rocks U.S. expat stronghold

By Roberto Ramirez | Reuters – 7 hrs ago

AJIJIC, Mexico (Reuters) - For decades, American and Canadian expats have flocked to the shores of Chapala, seeking refuge in the spring-like climate of Mexico's largest natural lake, where English author D.H. Lawrence once came for inspiration.

But the calm of the clustered lakeside retreats was shattered last month when suspected drug-gang hitmen kidnapped a group of Mexican locals and dumped 18 decapitated bodies in two vehicles just miles (kilometers) from the lakeside tourist enclave of Ajijic.

The explosion of violence followed months of escalating tension in a turf war between the Sinaloa and Zetas drug cartels that has spread from smuggling routes in the north to the fringes of Mexico's second biggest city, Guadalajara.

Just 40 minutes from the Jalisco state capital, the Chapala slayings horrified foreigners and locals alike, who locked themselves indoors and stopped going out.

"We thought it was going to be the end of Ajijic," said Phil Rylett, a 61-year-old retiree from Sacramento, California, who was in the picturesque village finalizing plans to buy a house with his wife. "You can't live in paradise if you're afraid."

Cross-border tourism to Mexico has been a notable victim of the drug war, which has killed more than 55,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led offensive against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

The number of day trippers to Mexico fell by a quarter between 2008 and 2011 and the numbers of U.S. tourists staying also declined three percent last year, despite a rise in the total number of international tourists, official data show.

But for all that, more and more Americans are coming to live in Mexico, seeking the lower cost of living and escaping the tough U.S. economy. The U.S. Embassy estimates over 1 million reside in the country now, up by more than a quarter from 2010.

Between 7,000 and 17,000 U.S. and Canadians live in Chapala depending on the season, making it the oldest and biggest concentration of U.S. expats in Mexico.

Despite the violence, most expats are staying put for now.

In February, the U.S. State Department issued its widest warning since 2006, advising against "non-essential travel" to 14 of Mexico's 31 states. It noted that the number of U.S. citizens murdered in Mexico had jumped from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.

Calderon's failure to contain the violence has eroded support for his National Action Party (PAN) which polls show is likely to lose the presidential elections due on July 1.

RIPPLE EFFECT

American residents across the country have been closely monitoring developments in Chapala, said Richard Kiy, president of the International Community Foundation, which has extensively surveyed the U.S. population in Mexico. As recently as October 2011, respondents overwhelmingly reported feeling safe.

According to residents and authorities, Zeta gang members kidnapped 32 people from the Chapala area in late April and early May, including three waiters walking home from their night shift at a lakeside restaurant and a 17-year-old girl.

"This time these were innocent people that they just snatched off the street," said Terry Vidal, 52, executive director of the Lake Chapala Society, which caters to expats.

"These were the children of our maids and gardeners and our colleagues. We were terrified," he added.

A Belgian resident who came across the attackers while walking his dogs was also kidnapped, and later released. He and his family have since left Mexico, locals said.

Twelve Mexicans managed to escape their captors, but on May 9, police found the dismembered remains of the 18 bodies stuffed into SUVs. Some had been refrigerated.

Six of the Chapala victims were affiliated with drug cartels but the rest did not appear to have any connection to organized crime, said Lino Gonzalez, a spokesman for Jalisco prosecutors.

Police arrested four people over the murders and are still investigating. The suspected ringleader of the gang, Juan Carlos Mercado, told police they selected people at random, intending to leave the bodies beneath Guadalajara's Millennium Arches to spread fear.

SHUT DOWN

In the ensuing weeks, the Chapala area "completely shut down," according to Vidal. Parents pulled their children out of school. Streets emptied. Some foreign residents left, waiting to see if things would "settle down," Vidal said.

But those who remained were galvanized.

Through the Community Safety Initiative, a Chapala group founded after a U.S. citizen was killed in a botched robbery here last November, they pushed for more safety measures, including security cameras and 24-hour cell phone numbers for officers on patrol. Some formed neighborhood watch groups.

Since the killings, residents say things have calmed down. Restaurants are opening up again, children have returned to school. Expats say that while they are more cautious, they are staying put, believing they are not targets.

"They're not after us," said Victoria Schmidt, 55, who manages the American Legion Post 7 in Chapala. "But we're extremely concerned about our Mexican friends."

The teenager who walked Schmidt's dogs quit because he did not want to be on the streets, she said. When one of her waiters at the Legion failed to show up this month, Schmidt panicked, thinking he had been kidnapped. He was ill.

"This has changed our reality," she said. "Most of the people who live here feel like we live in paradise. But now, well, it's different."

Any increase in the violence could prompt expatriates to cut and run.

"If the American community in Ajijic starts to feel insecure it could have a ripple effect across the country," Kiy said.

It is unclear what long-term impact the killings may have as they occurred at the end of the tourist season. The real test will be in November, when it picks up again. Real estate agents say sales have slowed in the past month, but not dramatically.

Expats say another similar atrocity could rip the community apart. Back in Sacramento, Rylett said he and his wife still plan on returning to buy their dream home.

"We're hoping it was an isolated tragedy," he said. "But if there are more disturbing incidents, we'll rethink our plans."

Edited June 18, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[X Factor 1,112]

Very sad state of affairs.