No. 2 Baja California Law Officer Arrested in Probe of Shootout

Mexican federal police arrested Baja California’s second-highest-ranking law enforcement official Tuesday in connection with a drug-related shootout between state and federal police two months ago.

After Deputy Atty. Gen. Sergio Ortiz Lara was hustled from his office at gunpoint to federal police headquarters a few blocks away, about 100 black-jacketed federal police officers armed with automatic rifles were deployed onto surrounding streets and rooftops.

The federal officers then engaged in a brief standoff with state judicial police officers who converged on the federal headquarters seeking information on Ortiz’s whereabouts, but the state officers withdrew without incident.

In addition to the March 3 shootout, investigators suspect that Ortiz may have been involved in the assassination last week of municipal Police Chief Federico Benitez Lopez, authorities said. Ortiz was previously arrested and released in connection with the shootout between federal and state police.

“The investigation is continuing into possible connections of Sergio Ortiz Lara with other crimes,” said Diego Valades, Mexico’s attorney general, in a news release. “Until now there are only uncorroborated versions. . . .

“For example, it will have to be established whether Federico Benitez Lopez had information that implicated Ortiz, and other public servants, in diverse criminal acts, such as their possible participation in the granting of police credentials to drug traffickers,” his statement continued.

The reference to credentials dates back to a 1992 case in which gunmen of the Arellano cartel of Tijuana were found carrying Baja California police credentials. Shortly before stepping down last month amid suspicions of drug corruption in his agency, state Atty. Gen. Juan Francisco Franco Rios said a federal probe found that his signature was forged on those credentials.

But Ortiz’s arrest raised new speculation that federal authorities are targeting high-level corruption and Franco himself. It also introduced the possibility that state law enforcement officials were involved in the assassination of the police chief, which the state agency is itself investigating. Authorities have said the police chief’s murder may be linked to his efforts against drug trafficking and police corruption.

Earlier Tuesday, the Baja California governor told reporters that investigators had not ruled out the possibility that Benitez’s death was related to his role in the probe of the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the ruling party presidential candidate, last month.

About 1 p.m. Tuesday, two federal officers intercepted the deputy attorney general as he walked toward the door of his downtown office in the state justice complex. The officers twisted Ortiz’s arm behind his back, stuck a gun in his ribs and walked him to a waiting pickup truck in front of stunned government workers, witnesses said.

Federal authorities said that Ortiz was arrested because an appellate court reversed a judge’s decision in March that dropped charges against him and five police commanders in the March 3 shootoutbetween federal agents and state officers, who were allegedly guarding a drug lord in the Arellano cartel. A federal police commander and four other men died in the gun battle.

The Arellano cartel has been the target of an intense investigation by federal police since the murder last year of the Roman Catholic cardinal of Guadalajara. The fugitive leaders of the cartel remain at large, allegedly under the protection of corrupt law enforcement allies, including the state officers involved in the March shootout.

State authorities had protested the federal charges that Ortiz aided drug traffickers, saying he and the others simply did their duty by responding to the chaotic shootout. The state blamed a now-fugitive homicide chief of the state police for helping two captured cartel gunmen flee. At the time, Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel said he had known Ortiz for years and regarded him as extremely honest.

The judge later dropped charges against all but one official. The relationship between state and federal agencies has been strained since. Until they were cleared, the state commanders armed themselves and slept in their station for several days to avoid arrest by federal authorities.

Tuesday’s events increased tension in an already tense city. Standing on a street corner with his AK-47 at the ready, a lanky federal officer in sunglasses, a bulletproof vest and jeans was asked if he feared an attack by state police.

“I can only tell you we have been told to stand guard,” he responded.