TIJUANA Baja California unveiled its new crime fighters on Monday, a new law enforcement agency meant to serve as a model for the rest of the country.
The first agents of the so-called Policía Estatal Acreditable (Reliable State Police), 83 men and women, were introduced at a graduation ceremony. They had undergone rigorous professional training and certification and exhaustive tests to evaluate their personal life.
They are the first of a total of 421 officers that the state plans to authorize in the next two years.
The agents also represent a model Mexicos president is proposing the entire nation adopt. The concept is based on the belief that each state should only have one law enforcement agency, led by one commander, to fight crime in an organized way.
The single agency would also make it easier to train its force and detect corruption among the ranks.
Now, there are more than 2,000 police agencies across Mexico that do not coordinate their efforts sufficiently, officials with Calderón Administration have said.
The majority of the agents presented Monday belong to Baja Californias current police force, called the Policía Estatal Preventiva (PEP), which investigates serious crimes such as homicide and kidnapping and carries out special operations.
The new force begins work at a critical time in Baja California, when the Calderón Administration is entering its fifth year of waging a war against drug cartels and the economic crisis has left thousands without a job.
Baja California, particularly Tijuana, has been a main battleground of that war. Its a place where organized crime, just a few months ago fragmented and damaged, appears to be reorganizing and picking up force.
The States Secretary for Public Safety, Daniel de la Rosa, said that the new agency will be known for its integrity, since each graduate has passed strict tests for illegal drugs, social problems, physical ability, as well as a lie detector exam.
Of the new agents, 45 belong to the Investigations Unit, 20 to the Tactical Analysis Unit and 18 to the Operations Unit, said de la Rosa during a ceremony at the State Police Academy in Tecate.
Baja California Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna said the new agency is one of three components of the new national security strategy, which consists of confronting and capturing criminals, reorganizing law enforcement agencies into a single one in each state, and repairing the social fabric ripped
apart by a lack of job opportunities for young people, social disintegration and the loss of values.
The governor said Baja California, along with Nuevo León and Sonora, are the first states in Mexico that are adopting the model for a Reliable State Police, which will help them better fight crime.
The Mexican federal government provided about $8 million to form Baja Californias new force, said José Luis Ovando, a congressman and president of the Public Safety Commission in Mexicos lower chamber.
According to Ovando, the new agency will be more reliable because every member will follow high ethical standards, will have fair salaries and continuous training. The officers will be equipped with the latest in protective equipment, transportation and weapons, he added.
The officers have their work cut out for them. A total of 2,327 people died in drug-related violence in Tijuana from 2008 to 2010, according to state authorities, and 370 have been killed so far this year. Together, these deaths represent 10 percent of the violent homicides linked to organized crime in all of Mexico.
And the state police agency itself was rocked in scandal in August, when four of its agents allegedly killed a young man in Mexicali.
Subsequently, their boss was fired, two have been arrested and two are still being sought.
Omar.millan@sandiegored.com
