Thread: Boy's slaying blamed on police raises uproar in Mexico

Boy's slaying blamed on police raises uproar in Mexico
President Calderon and others renew calls for an end to justice system corruption
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 5, 2008, 8:48PM
MEXICO CITY — Official accusations that Mexico City policemen were behind the kidnap-slaying of a 14-year-old boy fed renewed calls Tuesday for reforming the country's corruption-plagued justice system.

The decomposed body of Fernando MartÃ*, who was kidnapped two months ago, was discovered in a car trunk on Friday.

Three men, including a local police commander and one of his agents, have been arrested in connection with the killing of Fernando MartÃ*, who was kidnapped two months ago at a phony police checkpoint.

Mexico City authorities said that as many as 14 other policemen — all from a detectives unit operating at the Mexico City airport — were under investigation.

News of the arrests dominated the capital's airwaves Tuesday and filled the news and opinion pages of newspapers.

"The crime wave unpardonably advances because of corruption, the fragility of what we call the rule of law, the inefficiency of police," El Universal, one of the Mexican capital's leading newspapers, said in an editorial.

President Felipe Calderon called Tuesday for greater cooperation between federal, state and local police — something his administration has been pushing since coming into office in December 2006.

"If we were more united," Calderon said, "surely by now we would have advanced much more along the road to improving the police."

"This situation has to mobilize the entire society," he said.

Calderon, who has made fighting organized crime an anchor of his administration, has proposed greater cooperation, equipment and training for Mexico's more than 400,000 local, state and federal police. He'll partly pay for that program with some of the $400 million in U.S. aid provided under the Merida Initiative approved by Congress earlier this year.

MartÃ* was kidnapped as he was being driven to school in southern Mexico City in early June. His chauffeur and bodyguard were found the next day, stuffed into a car trunk. The chauffeur was dead and the bodyguard, who had been strangled, died a few days later.

The MartÃ* family — who in January sold controlling interest of its chains of sporting-good stores and gyms — reportedly paid a ransom of $5 million. But Fernando MartÃ* was never seen alive again.

The boy was taken by the so-called Flower Gang, which left a single flower as a calling card at the site of MartÃ*'s kidnapping and at least three others in the past two years, police said.

"It's a well-organized group," Miguel Angel Mancera, Mexico City's attorney general, said. "They operate with checkpoints, capturing the victims. In all the other cases, the victims have been returned."


Cell phone tied officer to crime
Prosecutors said Jose Luis Romero, commander of a large detective unit operating at the capital's airport, was arrested. The commander was linked to the crime by calls made from his cell phone, Romero said, but he declined to discuss other details of the case.

The second officer under arrest is a member of Romero's group, which was tasked with stopping hijackings of cargo trucks near the airport.

"An investigation and review of the police is expected," Mancera said.

The Mexican capital's security forces are being shaken up, yet again. But that process started before MartÃ*'s body was found, when Mexico City's police chief and a number of commanders were fired after a botched crackdown on a bar serving teens. Nine young people and three policemen were killed in a stampede.

But Mexico City is hardly alone in dealing with problem officers.

Officials in Jalisco state, whose capital is Guadalajara, accuse an agent with the state police's anti-kidnapping unit of masterminding the killing of six members of a family last week.

Prosecutors said the officer decided to organize the break-in of the family's home after helping negotiate a $100,000 ransom for a family member kidnapped last spring. The gang that invaded the home demanded another $100,000. When things went awry, the prosecutors said, the police killed all the family members, including two girls ages 7 and 8.

Some experts argue that the extent of police corruption and the eroding public security situation have passed the point for a simple reorganization to fix.

"We need a complete purge," said Arturo Arango, a public security specialist at a Mexico City think tank.

"We have heard so many times that they are going to straighten out and clean up the police. It's never happened."

dudley.althaus@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5926885.html

Three men, including a local police commander and one of his agents, have been arrested in connection with the killing of Fernando MartÃ*, who was kidnapped two months ago at a phony police checkpoint.

And Bush wants to give this country 1.5 billion dollars of our tax payer money to this country to fight THEIR drug war! You may as well deposit that money directly into the personal bank accounts of every politician and corrupt police officer in that country, since that's where the majority of that money is going to end up!

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Three men, including a local police commander and one of his agents, have been arrested in connection with the killing of Fernando MartÃ*, who was kidnapped two months ago at a phony police checkpoint.

And Bush wants to give this country 1.5 billion dollars of our tax payer money to this country to fight THEIR drug war! You may as well deposit that money directly into the personal bank accounts of every politician and corrupt police officer in that country, since that's where the majority of that money is going to end up!

Yeap 1.5 billion will buy the drug cartels lots of nice weapons that will be used against people on our side of the border some day soon.Bush is such a moron but then again our congress had to vote yes to give them the money.

Our government is still insane.

MartÃ* was kidnapped as he was being driven to school in southern Mexico City in early June. His chauffeur and bodyguard were found the next day, stuffed into a car trunk. The chauffeur was dead and the bodyguard, who had been strangled, died a few days later.

The MartÃ* family — who in January sold controlling interest of its chains of sporting-good stores and gyms — reportedly paid a ransom of $5 million. But Fernando MartÃ* was never seen alive again.

In view of the fact that the chauffeur and bodyguard were murdered, paying the 5 million ransom was a huge mistake. I know you can't put a price on your child but spending some of the money to hire a hoard of private investigators, offering rewards for information, etc. would have probably been more practicle (IMO). The murder of the chauffeur and bodyguard should have left no doubt as to the childs future once the ransom was paid.

Attention Mexico! Repeat after me, the DEATH PENALTY is a good thing.

Of course now they're in an uproar, a child of "elites" was murdered.
What about the other children who were killed before?

He'll partly pay for that program with some of the $400 million in U.S. aid provided under the Merida Initiative approved by Congress earlier this year.

$400 million?? Excuse me? Try $1.5 BILLION US DOLLARES, AMIGO.

Gee, we can't even get the credit we deserve from the Mexican press.