Pubdate: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Jose Mercury News Contact: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190 Fax: (408) 271-3792 Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: RICARDO SANDOVAL AND DANIEL VASQUEZ, Mercury News Staff Writers MEXICAN COPS LINKED TO KILLINGS? Probe of graves leaves out local and state police CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- A high-ranking Mexican official said Thursday that state and federal security forces could be involved in what some fear are the killings of as many as 100 people near this desert border town. Arturo Gonzalez Rascon, attorney general for the state of Chihuahua, is the first Mexican official to suggest publicly that Mexican police may have played a role in the disappearance of people, including several Americans, who are feared buried in mass graves being uncovered by U.S. and Mexican investigators. Officials have unearthed six bodies so far from grave sites in a horse ranch and shooting range near the Juarez airport, and the digging continues. The bodies were buried in clumps, and the ranch is rumored to have been run by people with ties to the violent Juarez drug cartel. An informant led officials to the grave sites. Before the attorney general's statements, official speculation had centered on the Juarez cartel. But so many Juarez police, along with some federal officers and Mexican army personnel, are believed to be tied to drug traffickers that police across the border in El Paso, Texas, don't trust them. State and local police aren't being included in the investigation, which is being conducted by officials from Mexico City and the United States. Juarez police also have been linked to the violent deaths of some of the 200 young women who have been murdered here in recent years, and residents in the area say they have lived in fear not only of drug lords but also of the police. ``(Juarez police) just can't be trusted,'' said a U.S. law enforcement agent in Texas who is familiar with Mexican drug cartels and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. ``It is really frustrating because we all know it, but our government refuses to act accordingly. ``For political reasons, we still certify Mexico as doing well in the fight against drugs,'' he said. ``Is it worth a suitcase of cash to a big country like the U.S. to tolerate this kind of corruption?'' Not all Juarez police are corrupt, say Mexican criminologists. But over the past year, 70 of the force's 1,300 officers have been fired or arrested because of corruption or links to drug dealers. ``That's out of a force of hundreds, but that small minority who are corrupt and do work with drug traffickers have the majority of the honest cops scared and acting like ostriches,'' said Jose Antonio Parra, a criminologist who has helped investigate the murders of women and drug dealers in Juarez. ``The silence of the honest cops makes it seem like the whole city is bad.'' ``I am very distrustful of police,'' said Guille Prieto, 33, pulling a pink waistcoat tight against a fall breeze. ``In Juarez, if you get stopped you can give the police $5 and they'll let you go. Everyone knows that. What does that tell you?'' Juarez Police Chief Javier Benavidez says his force's exclusion from the investigation is a jurisdictional issue, and he complains that drug dealers impersonating police have given his people a bad name. To that, Alfredo Quijano, a longtime Juarez resident and editor of its biggest daily newspaper, El Norte, responds: ``He'll say that because he knows it's true that his people are going bad. We've seen new officers arrive here and within a week they've flipped.'' ``So many of them drive expensive vehicles and strut around town with fancy jewelry,'' Quijano said, ``that it makes you wonder how they can afford it on a cop's salary of about $300 a week.'' Some residents of Juarez, a commercially dynamic town with 500 new residents a day, an unemployment rate of zero and 300 profitable assembly plants selling consumer goods and car parts to Americans, bristle at the suggestion that their city is unsafe. But they, too, have altered their lives to avoid both the police and the drug gangs. ``Juarez has crime like any other big city, but it's the poor and unprepared -- the many people coming here every day to look for work - -- who are the most victimized,'' said Esther Chavez, a women's rights activist who has worked with families of Juarez's murdered women. ``The new people don't know the risks and others are desperate to make fast money in drugs.'' Still, Juarez is not Mexico's crime capital. The western desert city of Culiacan has had at least 513 homicide so far this year -- most of them tied to the drug trade. Many believe that the Juarez police force is less corrupt than Mexico City's. But the violent nature of the Juarez cartel -- which is suspected of dumping the bodies in the grave sites -- and Juarez's proximity to the United States have brought unwanted worldwide attention to the city's police. Will Buller, a 23-year-old physical-therapy student at the University of Texas at El Paso, visits sprawling Juarez regularly but uneasily. ``I don't trust the cops in Juarez, never have,'' Buller said as he walked near the Santa Fe bridge in El Paso, to cross the border to Juarez. Buller and college friend Carson Schniers, 24, both said they knew of people shaken down by Juarez police and they've heard too many stories of random deaths to trust police. ``If you go off the main roads, you put yourself at risk,'' Schniers said. ``It's not worth it.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck