5/22/16, "Police, soldiers swarm Mexico's Acapulco, killings continue," AP, Mark Stevenson, Acapulco, Mexico
"Along with beach towels or sandals, there's a new popular beach accessory that says a lot about the violence gripping this once-glamorous resort: a small black leather tote hanging from the neck or shoulders of some men. It's not a man-bag, exactly; it holds a small pistol.
"When I saw you guys standing outside my office, I almost went for my bag," said one businessman who lives in terror after getting death threats and extortion demands by criminal gangs at his office four blocks from the water. "I'm in fear for my life."
Death
can strike anywhere in Acapulco these days: A sarong vendor was slain
on the beach in January by a gunman who escaped on a Jet Ski. Another
man was gunned down while enjoying a beer at a seaside restaurant. In
the hillside slums that ring the city, a 15-year-old girl's body was
found chopped into pieces and wrapped in a blanket, her severed head in a
bucket nearby with a hand-lettered sign from a drug gang.
The
upsurge in killings has made Acapulco one of Mexico's most violent
places, scaring away what international tourism remained and recently
prompting the U.S. government to bar its employees from traveling here
for any reason.
In
response, Mexico has lined the city's coastal boulevard with heavily
armed police and soldiers, turning Acapulco into a high-profile test
case for a security strategy that the government has used elsewhere:
When homicides spike, flood the area with troops.
Today
it's almost easier to find a truck full of soldiers, a federal
policeman or a gaggle of local tourist cops than it is to find a taxi
along the "costera," the seaside boulevard that runs through the hotel
zone. Marines patrol the beach, while federal police watch over the
breakwaters.
"This area has been made bulletproof," Guerrero state prosecutor Xavier Olea said.
Except
it hasn't. A week after AP reporters visited, gunmen shot to death
three young men in broad daylight two blocks away from a restaurant
where they met with an underworld figure. Two of their bullet-ridden
bodies lay on the concrete just off the beach, and one bled out on the
sand. Two were waiters, and the third a roving coconut oil vendor.
On
a recent day, farther down the beach, another black bag hung around the
neck of a man nicknamed "the lieutenant." He works as a bodyguard for a
man with underworld connections who agreed to meet near an open-air
restaurant to discuss the security situation. He spoke on condition of
anonymity to avoid being targeted by rivals or authorities.
"There
are 300 paid killers on the costera," the underworld figure said,
gesturing expansively over plates of fried fish and shrimp. At least one
other bodyguard was nearby. "A decent killer makes about 5,000 pesos
($275) a week."
Experts
say Acapulco shows the limitations of the government's security
strategy. Federal police, almost none of whom are from the city, quickly
get lost once they leave the coastal boulevard and ascend into
twisting, hillside neighborhoods. Their heavy weapons are ill-suited to
urban policing, and they're hampered as well by Mexico's unwieldy
judicial system and a lack of investigative training.
Last
week two men were shot and wounded on the street a block from the
popular Caleta beach. Police showed up, but when no ambulance arrived,
relatives or friends simply bundled the men into private vehicles to
take them to the hospital. Police marked spent shell casings with
cut-off plastic soda bottles, but there was no sign of any in-depth
investigation.
"It's
the same problem in Guerrero, the same problem in Tamaulipas, in
Michoacan," security analyst Alejandro Hope said, referring to three
states where homicides have spiked. "Suddenly there's an emergency, they
send troops to where the problem is and in the short term crime drops.
But then there is an emergency somewhere else, and then the troops have
to leave, and they have not developed local law-enforcement capacity."
Acapulco's
latest wave of killings began April 24, when bursts of gunfire broke
out along the coastal boulevard. It was the first time such sustained
shooting had been seen there since the darkest days of 2012, when the
murder rate in this city of 800,000 hit 146 per 100,000 inhabitants. It
has since fallen to about 112 per 100,000, but that remains far higher
than nationwide levels and appears to be on the rise again....
Street-level
drug dealing may well be second only to Acapulco's much-diminished
tourism industry for the amount of money involved. A so-called Oxxo —
local slang for a drug retail house, borrowed from the name of a
ubiquitous convenience store chain — can do an estimated 150,000 pesos
($8,100) in business in a single night. The underworld figure said there
are about 50 such "stores" in Acapulco, meaning that drug sales
probably amount to about 7.5 million pesos ($400,000) per day.
That pays for a lot of hitmen.
The
April 24 shootout came just after mysterious text messages circulated
among city residents warning of a bloody weekend, prompting many to stay
off the streets and keep their kids home from school....
After
the first shots were heard on the coastal boulevard, federal police in
their underwear began firing from a nearby hotel where they were
staying. Farther down the road, another hotel had its facade sprayed
with bullets.
The
police reaction, captured in online videos of loud, staccato gunfire,
worsened the public perception of violence in Acapulco. About 1,600
businesses in the city have already closed due to security problems,
said business chamber leader Alejandro Martinez.
"There
is a lot of mystery about what happened (in the shootout), but whatever
they did, they did it badly," Martinez said of security forces. "That
was an error on the part of the federal government that cost us a lot."
He added that the drop-off in tourism has hit business owners already dealing with extortion demands from the gangs.
"First
they send text messages," Martinez said. "Then come the phone calls,
and if you don't pay, they come to your business, four or five men,
asking for the owner."
There
have been targeted killings of business owners, and also collateral
damage: One waiter at a downtown restaurant was killed by a stray bullet
during a gun battle....
In
one, Ciudad Renacimiento, soldiers in battle gear guarded the chained
gates of the Gabriela Mistral grade school on a recent day while mothers
waited outside to pick up their kids. Like many schools in Acapulco,
security was stepped up after gang members demanded teachers hand over
year-end bonuses or a cut of their paychecks.
A
few steps away, Pedro Ramirez, 71, sat at the street stall where he
sells kitchenware. Gesturing toward the soldiers, he said all is quiet
during the day but the danger begins as soon as they leave. "It's
like there is a curfew, nobody goes out at night anymore," said
Ramirez, who has lived in the slum since its beginnings in 1980. "In the
morning, dead people turn up on streets.""
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