the consequences of fallujah, page-9

vigilante killings stun mexicans Vigilante killings stun Mexicans
Burning deaths on live television draw outrage
By IOAN GRILLO
Chronicle Foreign Service

MEXICO CITY - Viewers watched the live television broadcast in horror: Plainclothes policemen begged for their lives before a mob accusing them of being child kidnappers burned two of them to death in front of cameras.
ADVERTISEMENT

On Wednesday, Mexicans expressed disgust and outrage at Tuesday's killings and furiously debated what led to the latest act of vigilante justice in this crime-ridden nation.

Politicians and police chiefs, meanwhile, blamed one another and vowed to get to the bottom of two pivotal questions: Why had three plainclothes federal agents worked without backup in an impoverished and dangerous neighborhood? And why did local police take more than three hours to disperse the mob?

"Never before in my life have I felt so bad in myself," Alfonso Soriano wrote on the Internet discussion board of Mexico City's El Universal newspaper. "I am ashamed of Mexico."

Officers Victor Mireles, 39, Cristobal Bonilla, 27, and Edgar Moreno of the Federal Preventative Police were taking photos of an elementary school in San Juan Ixtayopan, an old and tight-knit community on the outskirts of Mexico City. The agents were gathering intelligence on drug dealing, said federal police director Adm. Jose Luis Figueroa.

As students left school at 6 p.m., hundreds of residents attacked the men, who they alleged were trying to kidnap children. Television crews arrived and broadcast the riot live on Mexico's two major networks. But police officers were slow to build up a presence and hesitant to confront the mob.

At 8:30 p.m., a bleeding Bonilla pleaded to television cameras as a jeering group of young men held him.

"We are police officers," he choked. "We were just doing our job."

Thirty minutes later, the mob doused Bonilla and Mireles in gasoline and lit them on fire. Riot police rescued Moreno and took him to a hospital. He remained there Wednesday fighting for his life, with severe injuries to the head and body.

In response to the attack, more than 800 city and federal police swept through San Juan Ixtayopan on Wednesday night and arrested at least 20 suspects, authorities said.

Some blame officials

Throughout Wednesday, calls and messages expressing horror at the violence flooded Mexican radio stations and newspaper discussion boards.

"This is barbarism," said Lourdes Mendoza, a caller to Formato 21 radio. "Our corrupt rulers have left us living by the law of the jungle."

Many people slammed the Mexico City police for failing to save the agents and demanded the resignation of chief commissioner Marcelo Ebrard.

In a news conference, Ebrard said traffic delayed police from arriving earlier. He also said there were not enough officers to confront rioters, some of whom had guns. Ebrard did not explain why the police had not used more helicopters to avoid the traffic jams.

Others, including Alicia Nolasco, the mother of lynched agent Moreno, criticized federal commanders for sending the officers into the field with no support and apparently without informing local police of their mission.

"They are sent out in the night with no protection," Nolasco told reporters. "That is not right."

Federal Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said agents from his office will take over the investigation into the lynching and determine who was responsible. Macedo said investigators will look into the possibility that local drug traffickers orchestrated the riot to attack the police probe into their activities.

Lynchings on the rise

Tuesday's killings were the latest in a series of lynchings in the Mexico City area. Earlier this month, police rescued an alleged thief from a mob in another community on the outskirts of the city. The mob responded by burning police cars and firing shots at officers. Two years ago, Mexico City rioters killed two youths accused of robbing a taxi driver.

Sociologist Rene Jimenez of Mexico's National Autonomous University said the lynchings are the communities' reaction to an onslaught of crime and a loss of faith in the police.

A violent crime wave has swept Mexico since a 1994 economic crisis left millions of people without jobs. During the same period, there have been dozens of police corruption scandals.

Jimenez speculated there is more vigilante action that goes unreported.

"The people feel they are fighting together to defend their community," Jimenez said. "This highlights the need to take a whole new look at combating crime.



this is what happens when a corrupt ineffective police force confronts high drug induced crime rates in a poor nation