States need super cop to fight cartels, governor says

He says single commander is succeeding in Baja California

Por: Omar Millán 15 Mayo 2011 @ 10:08 pm
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José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, Baja California's governor, urged other states to use a single command model to battle crime. SanDiegoRed Services

TIJUANA – Organized crime does not respect political and geographical boundaries. That’s why a single law enforcement commander is needed within each state to confront such criminals, said Baja California’s governor.

The single command is succeeding in Baja California, said Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna, who urged other states to adopt that model to battle crime.

He promoted this concept during the Conference of State Attorneys General of Mexico’s Northeast Zone, which covers Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua and Baja California, held in Tijuana on Friday.

Osuna said he has personally met with his counterparts in Baja California Sur, Sonora and Sinaloa to advance this plan.

Three years ago, the commander of Mexico’s Second Military Region, Gen. Alfonso Duarte, launched the concept of a single police command in Baja California. Duarte coordinates the daily efforts of all state and municipal law enforcement agencies, the Attorney General’s Office and the Lieutenant Governor’s Office in the battle against drug traffickers.

Those efforts occurred alongside initiatives to weed out corrupt officers; better train, equip and compensate officers; and carry out more hard-hitting operations.

But the violence began to spike just as authorities were beginning these efforts.

In Tijuana between 2008 to 2010, police logged 2,527 murders, 390 cases of people disappeared and more than 100 kidnappings. What’s more, as fear swept the streets, an undetermined number of residents fled the city altogether.

Little by little, building on major arrests and huge seizures of drugs and weapons, sections of the city began to feel more secure.

Killings that appear to have been committed by organized criminals continue, and hung and decapitated bodies continue to appear, but these events are no longer a constant.

According to Tijuana Mayor Carlos Bustamante, the crime rate has dropped 16 percent in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year.

The governor said that under a single command, the leaders of all law enforcement agencies developed a system to fight crime that “didn’t leave such an important problem in inexperienced hands.â€