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Rights panel probes Mexico police training
Mexico's human rights commission said on Tuesday it was investigating police training methods after videos showed a cadet being made to roll through vomit and another having his head shoved into a pit of excrement.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:04 July 10, 2008
Mexico City: Mexico's human rights commission said on Tuesday it was investigating police training methods after videos showed a cadet being made to roll through vomit and another having his head shoved into a pit of excrement.
The grainy images of a police training course, apparently partly filmed with a mobile phone camera, caused a scandal after a newspaper in the central state of Guanajuato posted them on its website.
The paper said the video showed courses given by a private security firm to officers in the city of Leon, apparently to harden them to torture that might be inflicted by criminal gangs that have killed hundreds of police while engaging in a turf war over drug smuggling and fighting a government crackdown.
"We opened the investigation to find out where these courses are being given and to which security forces so we can put an end to all kinds of torture," senior rights commission inspector Raul Plascencia told Mexican radio.
Plascencia said the commission was expanding its probe to see if the methods were being used across Mexico.
Outside of training courses, nine people have been tortured by police in Guanajuato state over the past two years, he said. Torture "is not part of a course, these are real deeds", he said.
The videos, which can be viewed on the YouTube website, show police being subjected to harsh treatment by superiors and what appears to be a foreign trainer in jeans and T-shirt giving orders in English.
Mexican authorities say the officers were being trained to cope with high-stress situations they could encounter as the federal police and the army wage war on violent drug cartels.
"If these were acts done with the consent of all involved there is no crime there," Guanajuato's state Attorney General Daniel Chowell said.
Exit: Top officials forced out
Mexico City's police chief and its top prosecutor were forced out of office on Tuesday following a botched nightclub raid that resulted in the deaths of 12 people, including a 13-year-old girl.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said the resignation of Police Chief Joel Ortega was the first step in a plan to reconstruct the police force. Ortega had held the post since 2004, when he replaced Ebrard. The mayor made the announcement shortly after a rights panel presented a report alleging rampant misconduct by officials.
- AP
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