El Paso Vice: When Drug Cops Become Criminals

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/failing-drug-war-when-cops-become-criminals-a-886441-2.html



In one of his first assignments, which he carried out together with the Mexican police, he was there when a commandant arrested a dealer. The police led the prisoner to a house on the edge of town. The officer hauled the prisoner to the bathroom, put his head in the toilet and flushed three times, says Martinez. The prisoner remained silent. The officer put a plastic bag over the prisoner's head. "Who paid you? Who paid you, cabrón?" he demanded. Then, to Martinez, he said: "Have you seen enough?"

When he got into his car to leave, Martinez watched in the rearview mirror as a Mexican police officer took a small rod out of his car trunk. Martinez had seen a rod like that before; it was an electric cattle prod.

That look in the rearview mirror was the moment he began to consider what had become of his goal to do good. He told himself that every day he won his battles and that the country could be proud of him. But when would the war finally be won?

When he came home, he kissed his wife Susie, a teacher, and said, "Hey honey, it was a good day, nothing particular to report from me today."