Another Mexican Police Chief Assassinated In Broad Daylight

Santa Catarina Police Chief German Perez was shot at least eight times when several gunmen walked into the police department, then straight to his office.  The killing of a Mexican police executive has been an all too common occurrence in Mexico since President Calderon supercharged the "War On Drugs" and inadvertently brought on a full civil war.  But the killing of Chief Perez was different.  There are some particularly chilling details emerging as state police investigators attempt to bring the killers to justice.

It seems very strange that no one challenged the gunmen.  They parked outside the police building and carried several rifles in plain view.  It is even stranger that the Chief's bodyguards were all indisposed in other places at the time.  Those two circumstances become very significant when it was revealed that three Santa Catarina officers were arrested while apparently spying on some policemen in a neighboring city who were possibly employed by the Zeta gang.  There is also some speculation that the Santa Catarina officers were not doing an "official" investigation, meaning that they were possibly under employ of one of the rival drug gangs.  The murder of Chief Perez on the heal of these officers' arrest smacks of retribution, gangland style.  And the man caught in the middle was Chief Perez.

I am proud to honor Chief Perez in my blog.  He remained at his post of Police Chief of Santa Catarina knowing full well what could happen to him and any of his police officers.  It is very unfortunate that Chief Perez was probably a victim of corrupt policemen who had long ago lost any sense of honor and duty, and the public faith placed in them as police officers.  In the end, they were common criminals, and their Chief paid the price. 

I commend Chief Perez and all other honest police officers of Mexico who continue in their duties when their lives are literally at stake twenty-four hours a day.  Many officers have been slain off-duty and even inside their own homes.  And for many officers, death did not come quickly by a bullet, or several, but by the most horrific means of torture.  Other police officers disappeared from their posts, never to be seen or heard from again.  Yet brave and honest police officers, like Chief Perez, continue their daily mission in spite of it all.  And they, with a disquieting regularity, pay the ultimate price for their devotion to duty.