I believe most people reading this post are aware of the rate of corruption that exists in Mexican police forces. In many place the drug cartels effectively own the police. When you think about it it makes sense. Drug cartels are generally composed of psychopaths who have no quarrel with hurting people as are police departments. A strategic alliance between the two seems inevitable. Unfortunately, if you’re not a member of the government or the drug cartels, you’re in a pretty bad position. You must make a choice between submitting to the police-cartel alliance or taking out the trash:
Small groups of local vigilantes took up arms and joined forces to storm Paracuaro, headquarters of the Knights Templar gang, where they arrested police officers and seized control of the town in a blaze of gunfire.
They drove into the town in black armoured vehicles shouting ‘Don’t be frightened, we are vigilantes’, before expelling drugs traffickers, whom they accuse of kidnapping people and bribing them to make money. Several gun battles were reported, leaving at least one dead.
Police officers, whom the vigilantes accuse of being in league with the cash-rich drug gangs, were rounded up by machine-gun toting locals, along with others suspected of associating with gang members, and a checkpoint was set up at the entrance to Paracuaro.
Many people will likely be quick to point out that the town merely swapped one set of rulers, the police-cartel alliance, for another set of rulers, the vigilantes. That may be true but it’s also likely that the vigilantes won’t be as ruthless as an alliance between two psychopathic organizations. I would also say that the vigilantes were likely members of the local community who became fed up with the alliance and simply wanted to rid their town of violent offenders and not claim rule over it.
As things continue to deteriorate in the here United States I won’t be surprised if we begin seeing actions like this. Many police departments, such as the ones in Los Angeles and New York, are known for their brutality and violation of civil rights. As economic matters continue to worsen these departments will likely try to take advantage of the situation by increasing the rate of arrests so property can be confiscated. A breaking point will eventually be released and the people will decide to so the cops out and establish a superior, and far less violent, system of neighborhood protection.