aljazeera.com
Mexico City – Ismael Ramos Mendez had always wanted to be a police officer.
Now 45 years old, he has found himself patrolling a Mexico City metro station, on foot, with his only way home, a police car that won’t start because the battery is dead.
It is not much to show for 20 years of experience, two decorations for exhibiting bravery under fire, and a masters in police administration.
But Mendez said he knows very well why he is here rather than as a police chief or first inspector. He said it’s because doesn’t pay «the quota» – money officers on the street have to hand to their superiors in some of Mexico’s myriad police forces.
«When you refuse to pay the quotas, you end up like this,» he told Al Jazeera.
«You end up here. Walking, without a car, completely alone. Isolated.»
Many Mexicans don’t trust the police, seeing them as, at best inefficient and at worst, corrupt and in the same as league as organised crime. But many low-level police officers, like Mendez, are not only being forced to pay «the quota» to their superiors, but are also struggling with substandard equipment. Some do not have working patrol vehicles and many lack training. Despite years of talk of police reform, little has changed, even as the country’s violence rises to unprecedented levels.
Mexico Today USA 