Pubdate: Wed, 6 Aug 2008
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2008 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Dudley Althaus, The Chronicle
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon

BOY'S SLAYING BLAMED ON POLICE RAISES UPROAR IN MEXICO

President Calderon And Others Renew Calls For An End To Justice 
System Corruption

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 Marti, 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 Marti, 
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.

MartA- 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 Marti 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 Marti 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 Marti'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 MartA-'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." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake