At press conferences I proudly proclaimed the capture of safe houses and drug cartel hit men in Mexico City, and displayed their powerful weapons, bulletproof vests, and stacks of money.\u00a0 \u00a0Here\u2019s what they\u2019re doing, I told the Mexican people.\u00a0 I want everyone to know that I, Edgar Millan Gomez, am the national police chief and most powerful and determined opponent of cartels that reap forty billion dollars annually from drug transactions, primarily in the United States, and who the last two years have murdered several thousand Mexicans, the majority criminals but a startling, and increasing, number of police, soldiers, journalists, politicians, and uninvolved bystanders.\u00a0 I applauded the bold deployments of President Felipe Calderon, who has sent more than twenty thousand troops to numerous areas where killers roam.\u00a0 They\u2019ll come after the president, if they can.\u00a0 I knew they\u2019d try to silence me.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Late on the night of May eighth two bodyguards escorted me to the front door of my apartment.\u00a0 In hindsight I\u2019m surprised they didn\u2019t insist on accompanying me inside.\u00a0 I should\u2019ve asked.\u00a0 Moments after they walked away, a man who\u2019d been hiding charged me and I threw my hand up and tried to seize the gun then felt my hand shatter but had knocked the gun on the floor and prepared to punch the assailant with my good hand.\u00a0 I could\u2019ve taken him but he pulled another pistol and shot me one, two three times, knocking me down, and leered over me as he pumped five more bullets into my torso.\u00a0 My bodyguards heard shots and dashed back to wound the criminal.\u00a0 At the hospital a sheet was pulled over my face.<\/p>\n During the interrogation, my officers determined the first shot, unheard by my bodyguards, had been fired from a suppressed .380 caliber handgun.\u00a0 They also discovered the killer had my apartment keys.\u00a0 But since I slept different places most nights, how did he know I\u2019d be here?\u00a0 Questions were posed with greater emphasis, yielding a confession he\u2019d been hired by Jose Montes Garfias, a federal police officer long stationed at the capital\u2019s international airport to interdict cocaine and elements for producing methamphetamine.\u00a0 Instead, I\u2019d suspected he was shielding shipments for the Sinaloa Cartel, and transferred him.\u00a0 While arresting Montes Garfias, federal officers found \u201cdocuments from several cars used by other top-ranking police officials, showing names, license plates, and models.\u201d\u00a0 Such treachery is common.<\/p>\n On the night of May first, Roberto Velasco Bravo, federal director of organized crime investigations, had been parking his sport utility vehicle outside his home in Mexico City.\u00a0 Two men, probably aware Velasco\u2019s bodyguard was not on duty, ran up and killed the director with shots to the head.\u00a0 A .380 suppressed handgun was found nearby.\u00a0 A day later Jose Aristeo Gomez, chief of staff of the Federal Preventative Police, was talking to a woman in front of his house in Coyoacan, a suburb of wealth and artistic distinction, south of Mexico City.\u00a0 Two men attacked and wrestled him toward the back seat of his car.\u00a0 Unable to subdue Martinez, they shot him in the chest and arm with a suppressed .380 pistol.\u00a0 On the morning of May ninth, a day after the attack on me, Esteban Robles Espinosa left his Mexico City house about eight-thirty.\u00a0 In seconds a car began to chase him.\u00a0 He accelerated until a truck skidded in front.\u00a0 Espinosa swerved his car around the truck but couldn\u2019t regain control and hit a tree.\u00a0 Still in the driver\u2019s seat, he was seven times shot in the head, neck, and throat.\u00a0 Twenty shell casings littered the scene.<\/p>\n The Sinaloa Cartel has been blamed for recent targeting of elite officials in the nation\u2019s capital, but the Juarez Cartel and Gulf Cartel and all others are sending the same message: cross them and they\u2019ll get you no matter who or where you are.\u00a0 In the most fundamental sense, cartels are declaring themselves the law and the government their hostage.\u00a0 Across highways hang banners inviting foolish, low-paid police and soldiers to jump out of the crosshairs and into the lucrative field of paramilitary drug dealing.\u00a0 Recruitment is successful. \u00a0Who can Mexicans trust?<\/p>\n President Calderon is trying to purge traitors and replace them with young soldiers and college students rigorously trained and better compensated.\u00a0 They will be needed as Mexico redefines the essential problem.\u00a0 We\u2019re not merely dealing with massive crime and the underlying socioeconomic difficulties.\u00a0 What we\u2019ve got now is civil war, and to win we must destroy enough heathens to compel the rest to behave.<\/p>\n Sources: \u201cDrug cartels go after police officers in Mexico\u201d, Associated Press; \u201cMexico: On the Road to a Failed State?\u201d, Stratfor; \u201cMexico: Examining Cartel War Violence\u2026\u201d, Stratfor; \u201cMexican Police Chief is Killed\u2026\u201d, Washington Post; \u201cMexico\u2019s War Against Drugs Kills Its Police\u201d, New York Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At press conferences I proudly proclaimed the capture of safe houses and drug cartel hit men in Mexico City, and displayed their powerful weapons, bulletproof vests, and stacks of money.\u00a0 \u00a0Here\u2019s what they\u2019re doing, I told the Mexican people.\u00a0 I want everyone to know that I, Edgar Millan Gomez, am the national police chief and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,33,161,10,223],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n