Federal Mexican Officers raid local police stations in hours-long standoff
By David Luhnow

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
2:00 a.m. June 10, 2009

MEXICO CITY – Federal police raided several local police stations in northern Nuevo Leon state yesterday as part of a sweep to try to clean up local forces allegedly corrupted by drug-trafficking gangs, state officials said. The raids came a day after heavily armed federal police engaged in a tense standoff with local officers in Monterrey, Mexico's third-biggest city.

Several dozen federal police and scores of local police squared off for several hours Monday afternoon at a busy intersection in Monterrey, aiming at each other with semiautomatic assault weapons and threatening to kill one another.

Anxious motorists fled their cars and took cover – although no shots were fired.

The standoff took place amid a crackdown on allegedly corrupt local police across the state. In the past week and a half, 78 police officers, including a police chief, have been detained on suspicion of being in the pay of Mexico's powerful drug-trafficking groups. Army troops and federal police have raided police stations across Nuevo Leon almost daily, interviewing officers and inspecting their weapons and cell phones.

The sweep began after army raids of gangs belonging to the Gulf Cartel led to the discovery of lists of officers in the gangs' pay, state judicial officials said.

President Felipe Calderón has been trying to slow a wave of violence between drug gangs that has led to an estimated 10,800 deaths since he took power in December 2006. He has sent the army into several states, is trying to weed out corrupt officers, and has taken aim at politicians in the pay of narco-traffickers.

Monday's events show how difficult it will be to clean up local police forces.
The arrests of local police angered their colleagues, who staged a protest by using their patrol cars to blockade busy city avenues, snarling traffic.

When federal police arrived to clear the intersections, local police drew their weapons and threatened to shoot.

Making matters worse, someone issued a call on the police emergency frequency saying that a local police commander had been kidnapped, and requesting local police from several municipalities to come to the scene.
The standoff ended after federal police arrested seven officers and impounded about 10 police cars used to block traffic.

Also Monday, soldiers detained the nephew of former Gulf Cartel kingpin Osiel Cárdenas in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Mario Alberto Cárdenas admitted heading a cocaine trafficking cell for the cartel along with his uncle, Ezequiel Cárdenas, one of Mexico's most wanted drug smugglers, the military said in a statement.

Osiel Cárdenas was detained in 2003 in Matamoros and extradited to Texas in 2007. He is set to stand trial in September.

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