MEXICO CITY — Look, up in the sky! It's the federales, rappelling down tall buildings to thwart the criminales.
At least that was the portrayal in slick television spots touting Mexico's Federal Preventive Police force and its Spiderman-like skills. Conceived six years ago as an elite corps of college-educated, highly paid young officers, it boasted of being insulated from corruption and committed to an ideal: "Intelligence and Discipline Against Delinquency."
That self-promotional image went up in flames last month. A mob surrounded and disarmed three of the force's undercover agents, apparently mistaking them for kidnappers, and then burned two of them to death as TV news cameras rolled. Backup squads didn't arrive for 3 1/2 hours -- the reality of a police force incapable of protecting even its own.
The gray-uniformed force, known by its Spanish initials, PFP, is now under federal investigation, the latest problem child of Mexico's beleaguered law enforcement system. Mexicans say rampant crime and weak rule of law have undermined faith in the democratic transition underway since President Vicente Fox's election in 2000 ended seven decades of single-party domination.
Calling crime fighting "the most difficult battle" of his term, Fox fired the commissioner and seven other top officials of the force last week and ordered its restructuring. "We will not stop until we have completely cleaned up the police forces," Fox said.
Mexicans say they have seen numerous such "cleanups" in recent years but little sustained headway against violent crime, official corruption and impunity.
"The system is so rotten that it no longer matters whom they put in as the maximum chief," said Tania Lara Ortiz, a 27-year-old accountant who was assaulted and robbed on a Mexico City bus this month.
The PFP started with high hopes of gaining the respect of the crime-weary citizenry. Most Mexicans live at the mercy of municipal police officers, who are generally corrupt and poorly trained. The last decade has seen the steady growth of seven separate federal police agencies with limited powers and specialized tasks.
The largest is the PFP. Its officers guard oil fields, ports and other federal installations, and enforce federal laws such as those against drug trafficking and illegal weapons. They are empowered to step in for local crime prevention when invited by local authorities, and demand for those services has risen sharply in recent years.
