Videos of Violent Police Training Appear as Mexico Awaits U.S. Aid

Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Videos showing Mexican police learning torture methods appeared on the Internet this week as the country, soon to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-drug aid, is seeking to improve its human rights record.

 

The videos show officers in the city of Leon, about 150 miles northwest of Mexico City, forcing one of their colleagues to crawl through vomit and injecting carbonated water into the nose of another. An instructor, whose face can be seen in one video, barks out commands in English. Leon Police Chief Carlos Tornero told the Associated Press that the instructor is from a private U.S. security firm, but he declined to say which one.

“These are no more than training exercises for certain situations, but I want to stress that we are not showing people how to use these methods,” Tornero said.

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The videos — first uncovered by a local newspaper, El Heraldo de León — ran repeatedly Tuesday on television stations here and prompted huge headlines in daily newspapers. La Jornada, a left-leaning Mexico City newspaper, declared, “Law enforcement in León teaches police to torture.”

Mexican and international human rights organizations expressed concern over the videos.

Full article here.

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