Thread: Tijuana police eager to show good image

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... crime.html

Officer helps American escape his kidnappers
Tijuana police eager to show good image
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 7, 2007

TIJUANA – After nearly a week tied up in a closet, a kidnapped American escaped from his captors yesterday by climbing through a window. Ian Adams was still in handcuffs when a municipal police officer found him begging for help on a street in central Tijuana.

Yesterday afternoon, the 42-year-old Rosarito Beach resident was at Tijuana police headquarters, preparing to tell his story to a U.S. Consulate representative and state kidnapping investigators.

JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune
A Tijuana motorcycle officer escorted a group of Americans who were bringing toys to children in an outlying area of the city yesterday.
“Thank you, muchas gracias,” the granite-and-marble contractor said with tears in his eyes, addressing a dozen unarmed officers, including Police Chief Victor Manuel Zatarain.
Stripped of their weapons by a federal order Thursday, the officers in the department have been working hard to portray a positive image.

As part of Operation Tijuana, a massive anti-crime effort launched by President Felipe Calderón, the Mexican military has taken the officers' weapons to test them and see if any have been used to commit crimes. Federal investigators have said organized crime has infiltrated the 2,300-member department.

While the municipal police sought to show the abduction incident as an example of their officers' valor, the Baja California government framed the rescue as part of Operation Tijuana. Federal, state and municipal police participated in the subsequent rescue of two other people in the house from which Adams had escaped, a state spokesman said. The kidnappers were not captured, but inside the residence, police found weapons and uniforms bearing the insignia of federal and municipal agencies.

Adams said he and his girlfriend, a Mexican citizen, were watching street racing Dec. 30 outside the Fox Studios in Rosarito Beach when six armed men grabbed them and drove them away. They were taken to the house in the Sanchez Taboada section of the city.

The captors demanded money, and Adams said he was able to obtain $30,000, but they didn't release him after receiving the money. Adams said they beat him with a piece of wood, breaking his nose, and that he spent most of the time blindfolded and handcuffed in a closet.

Adams said his main residence and business are in Hawaii, but he also owns a house in a gated community in Rosarito Beach. He had been buying used cars at auctions in the United States and bringing them into Mexico for resale.

Adams said he noticed that his captors became nervous a few days ago. Operation Tijuana was launched Wednesday, bringing soldiers, federal agents and state police to patrol the city's streets and conduct checkpoints.

He escaped by jumping through a window when his captors abruptly left the house unguarded about midday yesterday.

When he saw the Tijuana police officer, an accident investigator, “I thought maybe he was going to kidnap me, too,” Adams said, his hands cut and bloody from the escape. “I said, 'Por favor, don't kill me.' But he said, 'I'm going to be your hero.' ”

The police force has been on limited patrols of the city since Friday, said Zatarain, the police chief. Without weapons, his officers are responding to nonviolent situations and going out on group patrols. State and federal agents are responding to the more dangerous calls, but municipal police have occasionally stepped in when state and federal agencies have been slow to respond, Zatarain said.

In eastern Tijuana yesterday morning, city police reported for duty at a police substation in the La Presa district, one of the city's fastest-growing areas. Two dozen officers reported for 11 a.m. roll call wearing police radios and bulletproof vests, but with empty holsters.

Finding safety in numbers, groups of officers headed out in patrols of three or four pickups to check major thoroughfares and shopping districts. The disarming of the entire force “is a little bit drastic, and useless,” said Jose Manuel Celio, a 27-year-old shift supervisor. “This is affecting us, and affecting ordinary citizens.”

But several residents interviewed at random yesterday complained that the city police have been inattentive to their calls for help, and some have taken their own steps to stay safe. In the tough Mariano Matamoros neighborhood, one shopkeeper sold soft drinks from a barred window of her small store.

“When I'm walking down the street, I'm more afraid of police than of the criminals, because the police look at you and want to take you away” said 25-year-old Luis Gonzalez, whose family sells tacos and claims frequent harassment from police. “They ask you for money. You don't feel safe on the street.”

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Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com


Somebody needs to check on Luis Gonzales next week, his taco stand might be standing alone.

Sounds like our National Guard, doesn't it? Hmmm...