One bloody summer
Mexico fights back against corruption — imagine that
- Earlier this year, police officers protested corruption in the force.
- Facundo Rosas, Mexico's federal police commissioner, announces the dismissal of3,200 police officers since May.
- More than 460 of the officers released from the force face criminal charges.Many wonder if laid-off police officers will join forces with the drug cartels.
The corruption in Mexico is common knowledge. In Mexico, you can beat your wife and pay off the investigating police officer. The police, newspapers, celebrities and politicians all have their hands in the pot (no pun intended).
Yet on Tuesday, Mexican government officials handed 3,200 federal police officers (about 10 percent of the force) the pink slip.
What? Are pigs flying?
Facundo Rosas, Mexico’s federal police commissioner announced the firings at a news conference in Mexico City. News reports say this crackdown is apart of Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s war against the drug cartels.
Mexican Blood Bath Summer of 2010:
May 30: 55 bodies were found in a mass grave used by drug gangs in a Mexican Mine.
June 11: 19 patients of a drug rehab center in Northern Mexico gunned down.
July 18: 17 people killed at a Mexican birthday party, drug gang blamed.
Aug. 24: 72 migrants found stuffed with bullets in Tamaulipas by Mexican naval units.
At the end of July, President Obama sent a letter to Speaker of the House to Nancy Pelosi asking for an additional $500 million to border security. Calderón attributes the insatiable hunger for drugs in the United States for the brute force behind drug cartel violence in Mexico.
This YouTube video shows a Mexican TV broadcaster ducking bullets during his stand-up: