Arms in Mexico

It is easy to be critical at President Calderón’s misguided, heavy-handed and ill-planned war that he has launched against the deeply entrenched cartels, but there have been results (aside from the slaughter of over 29,000 people since Dec 2006). The Mexican government released figures on the number of weapons seized in the last 10 years, over 79,000, with nearly 71,000 of those being seized since Calderón came to power 4 years ago. Of the 79,000 weapons, 23,000 are assault rifles and other large caliber weapons while almost 48,000 are handguns (the astute reader will notice that these two numbers do not add up to 79,000, this is due to the fact that there are other weapons seized such as anti-personnel mines, hand-grenades and rocket launchers). The weapons of choice is the ubiquitous AK-47 (known in Mexico as cuernos de chivo or “goat horns”) and its American cousin the AR-15 although the nacros have a fondness for the .50 Barret and RPGs as well as the FN57 or matapolicías (police killers) which, when used with Teflon bullets can pierce body armor. The bosses are so fond of their weapons that they have them coated in gold plating.

So we can see that there is some good of this effort, that some weapons are being removed (90% of which are determined to be from the United States).

For a map of the killings: click: Narco-killings

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Deep Undercover

Kristina Goetz of the Memphis Commercial Appeal has this story about an officer doing "deep undercover."

She also had to restrain her police instincts to break up a fight at a convenience store or call social services if she saw a dealer hit his child because being caught would compromise the larger goal.

And what larger goal was more important than preventing physical child abuse? I would sue the police department if I were an assault victim and a police officer present did nothing.

But such is the nature of the war on drugs. Locking up a drug dealer (not preventing drug use) is more important than preventing injury or the beating of a child.

All the evils she saw? Those weren't caused by drugs. They were caused by bad people in bad conditions. And people who commit bad crimes should get locked up.

So let me get this right. All the crimes you saw, the poverty, the desperation, the tricks, the violence, the child abuse? You saw people in f*cked up situations doing bad sh*t. And you were a police officer and you let it happen. You let all that slide because you were fighting some bigger fight. You rationalized that you needed to let some crimes slide so that you could go "up the ladder" and maybe even lock up some "kingpins" and win the war on drugs?

Did you?

In a year's time, this officer's work "resulted in more that 280 arrests -- from low-level drug peddlers to big-name dealers." And is Memphis safer? Have murders gone down? Has drug use gone down? By being "deep undercover," you ignored your oath as a police officer to defend the laws and the Constitution of our land.

Look, it's not like this officer didn't give her all. So did LEAP founder Jack Cole. They just gave it for the wrong reasons. Like Jack Cole, perhaps she too will speak out against the war on drugs. Maybe she'll wonder if some of the people she locked up weren't really that bad. Maybe she'll feel bad that some people are in prison because they were in bad situations and they trusted her. They thought she was their friend. And for all I know, she might have been their friend. And then she ratted them out.

That would be a heavy weight on my shoulders.

[from Peter Moskos's Cop in the Hood]