According to El Universal, the proposal of President Calderon to dissolve the municipal police was not well received in the Chamber of Deputies, after being deemed as a “simplistic idea” and “unacceptable.” Though there was some support for the proposal, its initiation is not in immediate sight.
PRI Congressman Omar Fayad said the municipal police management is indeed distorted, due to the fact that they have never had the task of combating organized crime, “They are a necessary preventative police force and cannot accept their elimination with simplistic ideas of the President.” Fayad, who wants to be president of the National Federation of Municipalities of Mexico, said it is a complex issue based on a troubling reality, but that under no circumstances is the disappearance of the municipal police forces a viable solution.
PAN Senator Ramón Galindo Noriega, president of the Municipal Development Commission, deemed it unacceptable to propose the removal of 2,022 municipal policemen without a technical diagnosis. “While local security corporations are the weakest link of the State, they are also the place from which you must start the exercise of justice.” Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, vice coordinator of the PRD in the Chamber of Deputies, said before the speech, to expect a serious, formal proposal from the President to the Legislature. She emphasized that, “It is about the proposal, and most importantly to know what authority will lie with the state police.”
Voices in favor of the proposal included Jiménez Macías, PRI senator, who stated, “The integration of a single security force is a good choice. One of the problems in fighting crime is the lack of coordination between different forces.” He added that at present there is insufficient coordination, “there are three separate efforts, the police are under federal jurisdiction, the states, and then the municipalities. To the extent that there is more integration, I think it will be positive in order to fight crime.” Graco Ramírez, a member of the Security Commission and PRD senator, said local police have become the logistic bodies of organized crime. He stated, “They are passing information because they are poorly paid; organized crime has established a strategy to control two areas in the municipalities: security offices and license management.” Debate on the role of the municipal police forces, as effective agents in combating organized crime, versus the claim that they are actually the most likely factors to be involved in organized crime continues.
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