Mexico arrests more than 100 local police officers for various abuses and offenses

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities in two states in southern Mexico arrested more than 100 local police officers Monday for various abuses and offenses, adding to the long list of police corruption scandals in the country.

In the largest of the two incidents, 92 municipal police officers in the southern state of Chiapas were arrested after they tried to stop state authorities from assuming command of a police surveillance camera office.

Chiapas state prosecutors accused local police officers in the city of Comitan of using the video cameras to inform local groups — some of which are allied with drug cartels — about state and federal raids in the area.

Chiapas state police chief Óscar Aparicio Avendaño said some of the 92 municipal Comitan police officers drew their guns on state officials trying to take control of the video surveillance office, and forced them out at gunpoint.

The 92 officers were held pending charges of rioting and abuse of authority.

After they were detained, some local residents blocked streets and destroyed or damaged video cameras; about 30 of them were arrested on riot charges.

At issue are local groups that claim to represent farmers in the rural region, but which have often been forced or paid to act in support of drug cartels that have been warring over turf in Chiapas for months.

Having corrupt local police use the surveillance camera network to report the movements of federal troops or state police would be valuable to the farm groups and cartels, which often operate road blockades.

Comitan is located near the border with Guatemala, on a lucrative route for immigrant smuggling.

Chiapas has become so overrun by the Sinaloa cartel and the rival Jalisco drug cartel — both of which also participate in migrants smuggling and extortion — that some residents of Mexican towns have been forced to flee to Guatemala for safety.

Chiapas Gov. Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar said the days of local populations collaborating with criminal gangs are over.

“The days are over when they (the gangs) came in, took over, and (said) ‘go do this, go block that, go oppose the armed forces,” Ramírez Aguilar said. That was an apparent reference to incidents in several Chiapas towns where local residents took to the streets to block army patrols and demand their withdrawal.

However, the cartel problem in Chiapas largely arose under former governor Rutilio Escandón, who like Ramírez Aguilar is also a member of the ruling Morena party. Escandón was recently appointed as Mexico’s consul in Miami, Florida.

Meanwhile, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, state prosecutors said they had arrested 13 state police officers implicated in three cases of forced disappearances. That is an offense in which authorities abduct someone who vanishes without a trace.

Prosecutors in Veracruz did not provide details on the alleged victims.

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Alba Alemán reported from Xalapa, Mexico

By EDGAR H. CLEMENTE and ALBA ALEMÁN
Associated Press