The long-standing acrimony between the Guadalajara municipal police force and their state counterparts boiled over this week during a bizarre confrontation on a major avenue in the northern part of the metro area.
The trouble started when a team of five plain-clothed municipal officers tried to detain a man riding a motorcycle without license plates who was allegedly acting suspiciously and behaving aggressively. The officers were part of a group charged with identifying criminals who target and rob bank customers carrying large sums of cash.
At this exact moment, several Jalisco State Police pick-ups passed by the intersection on Circunvalacion Oblatos where the incident was unfolding. Assuming that the plain-clothed cops were assaulting the motorcyclist, the state officers took it upon themselves to cuff and arrest their municipal counterparts.
Amid the confusion and acrimony, both sides called for reinforcements and within minutes some 50 units had rushed to the scene. A two-block section of busy Circunvalacion Oblatos was closed to traffic for two hours as municipal and state law enforcement officials confronted each other. Such was the bitterness that Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer even took the time show his face.
No agreement could be worked out, and even though their colleagues tried to form a human barrier in protest, the five municipal cops were eventually hauled off to the cells. They were all were released the next day, but the bad blood between the two departments continued to brew.
Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro issued a condemnatory statement in which he accused the state cops of “assaulting” his officers while in the course of their duties, and failing to protect Guadalajara’s citizens. Not for the first time, he called on Almaguer to resign.
The attorney general, who had earlier described the incident as “a confusion,” later confirmed that municipal officers are legally not permitted to operate in plain clothes unless accompanied by state police, something Alafro disputes.
The Guadalajara mayor has been one of Almaguer’s fiercest critics over the past year. He has accused the attorney general of trying to sabotage his administration for political reasons.
Some commentators say Alfaro, of the Citizens’ Movement, and Almaguer, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), are the favorites to lead their parties in next year’s gubernatorial election.