Official Readies Guerrero for a Unified Police Force

(Acapiulco, AN 9 November) In Acapulco, police work is performed by no less than 10 different police commands, counting the military police, the investigative police for the various Justice Departments, the tourist police, the traffic police and the regular police forces at the municipal, state and federal levels. The Public Safety Director of Guerrero, retired general Juan Heriberto Salinas Altés, affirmed yesterday that the 81 municipalities of Guerrero have signed an agreement to create a unified, state-wide police force; the remaining questions relate to salaries, requirements of age, education and physical condition, and most importantly, who shall be at the command of the force.

"The question of qualifications is most serious,” he said, “as many officers are overweight and suffer from degenerative illnesses.” He added that the government administers “tests of confidence” to police elements, including polygraph test, but “more than 1700 city police and over 500 state police have not yet passed these requirements.” Each test takes about four hours for the battery of five tests, and the polygraph specialist can only test two persons per day.

General Salinas Altés advised that so far, “the state police have not been the victims of organized violence, nor have they been infiltrated by criminals, nor do they have links with criminal organizations.” He admitted that there have been a few problems with security chiefs in the Social Rehab Centers, as “they come into direct contact with the delinquents.” The firings that have occurred in the state corps were for flunked drug tests, and a few others for their links to organized crime. The public safety director also recognized that during the present administration crime rates have risen among the city police forces, but “Guerrero, in spite of all the circumstances, is above the national average… number 14 among the states.” Of the different regions of the state, Acapulco is considered a “red light” area, having overtaken Tierra Caliente, which historically has been an area of heightened drug activity due to its isolation and its proximity to neighboring Michoacán. According to police studies, criminal activity is usually confined to the mountains of Guerrero. The recent turf battles of warring narco gangs has placed Acapulco in the spotlight over the last two months.