Killing Leads to Those Feared by Many Mexicans: Police : Crime: Four officers are implicated in execution. Now 30 witnesses are risking retribution for justice’s sake.

Eduardo Torres Garcicrespo was, by all accounts, a hidden hero of Mexico’s troubled middle class.

Through the nation’s latest economic fiasco, Torres kept his job of 14 years as a pilot for Mexicana Airlines. He rarely complained about the soaring interest rates, skyrocketing prices and growing debt plaguing most Mexicans. And unlike most Mexicans, he refused to cancel vacation plans for his wife and three children this Holy Week, the sacred pre-Easter holiday that begins today. He had paid in advance for seven days on the beach in Puerto Vallarta.

But today the 40-year-old pilot is dead, shot between the eyes apparently by a member of the police department that he and millions of other citizens pay to protect them.

On Friday, Mexico City’s top prosecutor confirmed that three patrolmen were arrested and a fourth is being sought in the March 30 murder of Torres in the driveway of his parents’ home. Torres’ family insists it was a summary execution by the Mexican police--an occurrence that human rights groups say is frighteningly common but rarely prosecuted.

Through the sheer anger of Torres’ family and friends, and the courage of nearly 30 witnesses who risked retribution to come forward, the pilot’s murder has become a test case for President Ernesto Zedillo’s stated commitment to fostering a new rule of law in Mexico.

Torres’ killing--for no apparent reason, with a police .38--embodies one of the greatest fears of many Mexicans: abuse at the hands of police. And the family’s fight to bring the killers to justice illustrates the frustration and fury in Mexican society over a judicial system that often doesn’t work.

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Zedillo’s vows to reform a law enforcement system mired in corruption are echoed by Jose Antonio Gonzalez Fernandez, Mexico City’s chief prosecutor. Gonzalez has pledged to clean up a police department accused of 3,988 cases of abuse last year alone, and Friday’s arrests appeared to be a step in that direction. But Torres’ family said they are not satisfied.

Prosecutors said that they still have not determined the motive for the shooting but that only the four cited officers appear to have been involved. But members of the pilot’s family, in an account of the incident based on the sworn testimony of 30 witnesses, insisted that there is a cover-up and said they plan to sue the city.

“It is an important and unusual case,” said the family spokeswoman, Torres’ sister-in-law Myra Perez Sandi Cuen, “because there were so many witnesses who came forward, because it directly involved the police in a crime so many fear could happen to them and because, even (more than) one week later, they are still covering it up.

“Always we have feared the police. And I do fear them now,” she continued. “But I’m 45 years old. I’ve had a good life. I’ve lived it well. And now, I want a different type of society. So it’s worth it to take the risk in Eduardo’s case. And I think the witnesses all feel the same way.”

According to the family and the witnesses, Torres was the victim of an “arbitrary execution” that apparently began with the kind of moment that strikes dread in many Mexicans--the moment police lights flashed in the rearview mirror.

Torres had been at dinner with several fellow pilots at The Good Faith restaurant in Mexico City’s San Angel neighborhood. He called his wife as he left for home, saying he was dropping off a colleague on the way.

He never made it home.

After Torres dropped off his co-pilot, the family says, a police car started following Torres’ white, late-model Dodge Shadow. Another patrol car appeared, then another. Eventually four cars were following Torres. The witnesses, Torres’ family and city prosecutors all say they cannot determine how Torres drew police attention.

“Maybe he witnessed something the police had done, or perhaps he committed a traffic violation that really angered them,” his cousin said, noting that Torres had never even received a traffic ticket let alone been arrested.

By all accounts, Torres refused to stop until he reached what he felt was safe ground: his parents’ house not far away. Many Mexican motorists are wary of police pullovers, because the poorly paid officers are widely known to stop drivers--both for legitimate reasons and at random--and extort money from them.

“If I committed a traffic violation late at night and the police followed me, I wouldn’t stop. Practically no one would,” Sandi Cuen said. “Always, we have feared that the police are going to stop us and ask for a bribe. But it’s especially dangerous late at night, and especially when we have license plates from the provinces, as Eduardo did and as I do. They stop me at least once a month. If it’s daytime, fine. I stop. But never at night.”

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Torres apparently made the same decision. With the four squad cars in pursuit, the witnesses said, he sped toward his parents’ house in the city’s middle-class Roma neighborhood. As Torres approached the house, witnesses recalled, he frantically honked his horn in warning, awakening the entire block.

Torres pulled into the driveway but didn’t even have time to shut off the engine, neighbors and other witnesses said, before a stocky policeman about 50 years old walked up to the car and shot Torres’ once between the eyes.

One by one, the witnesses said, the patrol cars then quietly retreated down the street with their lights off and disappeared from the scene--long before a local radio news team and, eventually, an ambulance arrived.

The following next night, something remarkable happened. A witness showed up at the funeral home, nervous and angry, and handed the family a drawing of what he had seen. Other witnesses turned up at Torres’ father’s home with similar accounts.

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At a meeting arranged last Monday by Torres’ family and friends, a deputy city prosecutor took sworn statements from 30 witnesses. Several provided the numbers of the patrol cars that had been at the scene. Within days, after taking statements from about 70 police officers and conducting tests on 146 police weapons, prosecutors arrested the three patrolmen, Jose Alfredo Totozintle Pena, Luis Hernandez Barrera and Rodrigo Parra Barasalobre. The fourth suspect, still at large, is Jesus Angel Huerta Cerezo.

“What was so unusual in this case was that the witnesses came forward at all,” Torres’ sister-in-law said. “Usually they’re too afraid. After Eduardo was killed, in fact, a patrol car drove very slowly through the neighborhood with its lights flashing, stopping in front of each house (from which) a witness had come forward. I think . . . Eduardo and his family were so well known and so well liked in the neighborhood that people decided to follow their conscience.”