Drug cartels overwhelm police

In Mexico's war on trafficking, local law enforcement agencies typically lack the manpower and firepower to make a stand.
By Héctor Tobar and Carlos Martínez
LA Times

The message came on police emergency radio: An army of drug traffickers with machine guns mounted on their pickup trucks was headed toward this town of 5,000 people on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Like a sheriff in a western, police chief and part-time schoolteacher Juan Bracamontes gritted his teeth and assembled his 15 officers, who had nothing better than old .38-caliber revolvers to face off against the enemy.

"Those who want to leave can leave," the chief said. "Those who want to stay and fight, line up behind me and we'll give it to them good."

One officer quit on the spot. The others deployed around the town, but not before taking off their uniforms and abandoning their patrol cars for unmarked vehicles.

In other Mexican towns, local authorities have not shown as much courage in the face of threats from cash-rich drug traffickers. Underarmed, under-prepared and often corrupt, small-town officials and police are the Achilles' heel of President Felipe Calderon's offensive against the nation's drug traffickers.

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