11 police arrested in Jalisco for forced disappearance

October 27, 2020

Police in Guadalajara arrest protesters in June. They were accused of arbitrary detention at the time.

Eleven Jalisco police officers have been arrested on charges of the forced disappearance of eight people since 2018.

The investigation, which took several months, culminated in the simultaneous arrests of six officers from Tlaquepaque, three from Teocaltiche and two from Autlán de Navarro. The Mexican army assisted in the arrests.

The disappearances occurred in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and officials say there may be more arrests to come.

“Some requests [for arrest warrants] are pending before the courts, others are on appeal,” said prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez. “We understand that in a regrettable way some public servants may be involved and in the case of the prosecutor’s office we will not make any exception when sufficient data is found to proceed.”

Besides Friday’s arrests, this year alone more than 30 municipal and state police officers have been arrested in Jalisco on charges of robbery, extortion, drug possession, police abuse, forced disappearances and even homicide, according to an investigation by the newspaper El Informador.

Alejandro Hope, a security analyst, commented that the origin of police force criminality lies in lack of supervision and training, as well as a culture of impunity.

“Very few [police forces] have supervision mechanisms and internal affairs units that function with honor and justice commissions, with tools that allow them to control these armed forces,” Hope said.