New Chief Militarizes Mexico City’s Police

The army general serving as Mexico City police chief announced Tuesday that he has dismissed every top official in his department and replaced them with military officers--a move he said will break up the “brotherhood” of police corruption and abuse that has shattered citizen confidence and security.

A month after President Ernesto Zedillo appointed Gen. Enrique Salgado to address soaring crime and corruption in the Mexican capital, the commander defended the militarization of senior police posts as the only way to restore professionalism in the ranks.

The appointments, he said, are meant to instill in police the military “principles of order, of dignity, of loyalty and of institutional respect for human rights and the will to serve. . . . Our goal is to clean up the department.”

In his first news conference since his appointment, Salgado also presented a distinctly civilian-style 22-point plan to restore security in this city of 20 million--including citizen advisory councils, school drug-prevention programs and uniformed bicycle patrols, which actually began in the city’s most crime-infested neighborhoods this week.

But opposition leaders criticized his appointment of military subordinates as a potential military takeover.

“We’re worried that if there aren’t any results, we’re going to see a toughening of the police forces--an iron hand,” said Gonzalo Rojas, a city councilman from the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party who sits on the council’s justice commission.

Taxi drivers and motorists continue to complain of widespread shakedowns by police, and foreign tourists regularly file formal complaints of police beatings, robberies and other abuses here.

Just last week, Dave de Coup-Crank, a computer designer visiting Mexico City from Washington state, told The Times he had filed a report with the city’s tourist police after being forced into a squad car by two officers he later identified in mug shots.

He said the officers beat him, took his cash, camera and watch, and dumped him several miles from his hotel. He recalled one officer telling him: “See, we’re not that bad. We didn’t kill you.”

In announcing his plan to reform the 30,000-member police force, Salgado conceded that the process will take time.

“I think we’re getting results, and I think they will increase,” he said. The biggest step so far, he asserted, has been dismantling the “brotherhood.”

Police sources say top commanders demanded kickbacks from the officers under them in a system that perpetuated corruption.