El Diario de Coahuila (8-26-2014)
Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat
Just so we know we're getting into the big leagues, the former mayor of Tepalcatepec, Guillermo Valencia, gave us a glimpse of the police patrol units that are circulating around in his home town; Mercedes Benz models, no less.
Hearing rumors about the transportation that Fuerza Rural [Castillo's rural police] police are using in Apatzingan, the incredulous Valencia asked social network users to send him photographs as proof... and seeing such marvelous images, the deposed mayor could only think to compare the Michoacan city with Dubai... and how can you avoid the comparison, when it's only in those countries, where it seems that money flows - in some places--, that they have the luxury of using sports cars for public safety.
"It's one of the richest and most modern cities cities in the world. Proof of that is that its police force has a fleet of patrol vehicles that includes Lamborghini sports cars... In Apatzingan, Michoacan, they don't hold back, and the new Rural Police Forces also have them, but they use Mercedes Benz sports cars," Valencia said with irony.
But in the Michoacan municipality, they do things backwards; before transforming their city into a business focal point, they first create the appearance, and the new patrol vehicles are a sign of the growth that the region will have. They even give hope to those families that live in poverty, the former mayor points out.
But, well, not everything is luxury. While the Fuerza Rural drives all terrain BMW X5s, worth approximately one million pesos ($77,000.00), members of the new National Gendarmerie have to make do with Jeeps that cost about 450,000 pesos (approx. $35,000.00)
"The new police forces created by Commissioner Alfredo Castillo seem to be at the Viceroy's level of opulence, who, as a government official, earns more than the President of the Republic, since he (Castillo) receives a monthly salary of $194,000. plus benefits. This police force surpasses the privileged police forces of economic and petroleum superpowers like the police from the Arab Emirate of Dubai. I wonder if President Pena Nieto knows that his envoy's police force has more privileges than the federal government's new security force?" asks Valencia.
It's well and good that the authorities should be well equipped... but that well? And should they give themselves those luxuries?
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