Notes from meeting w/police jefe

The following is an e-mail forwarded to me by a friend, posted without comment:

I received this from a friend who received it from a woman who is friends with the writer. I attended the meeting and this seems an accurate account of what I heard and observed. The writer is Mexican with an excellent command of English.
just a fast re-count of what I remember from the meeting today with the Police chief.

There was a lot more people than the other meeting about security, this time the presence of Mexicans was very evident, I think that this is more important to them than the foreign community. Linda Fossy was there introducing the chief of Police Mr.Contreras and Linda made some questions. There was a woman who translated rather poor both in English and Spanish, she did not always translat what was said in both languages. The chief of Police said he was there not to argue or fight with anybody. He was there to stop all the rumours and to tell us the truth of the events that have happened here.
He started saying that there is not a curfew (toque de queda)
that the rumours about kidnapping children and women are not based on any threats that he is aware.
He said that the bodies found on the highway to Guadalajara were found in two different cars and were 18 bodies, however not complete. There were 18 torsos, but heads, and limbs were missing. Some of the bodies had been frozen.
The bodies found in Riveras were the body parts missing from the other bodies in the highway, and not other victims,
They were all innocent Mexicans, and the only link to narcos was that two of the victims were the sons of a lady that rented her home to some of these criminals.
They have so far found four homes that serve as safety homes , two in San Nicolas where one is believed, but not proved that they killed the victims there, and belongs to the sister of one guy in Tamaulipas who ordered the killings, the other two homes are in Rancho del Oro where they found guns and grenades,
They only have 3 guys in custody, and that is how they have follow the trail to the other places....
He knows that these criminals belong to the Zetas.
The guy that was supposedly lost in the Tepalo, behind our homes, was a Belgium guy that was walking his dogs, and unfortunately he found these criminals and they had other sequestered guys and one girl. They raped the girl and they killed one of the dogs of the Belgium guy and they let him go along with the girl and the Belgium guy's statement said that they say to him, "We are not going to harm or kill any foreigners, only Mexicans" and let him go. They ask him to take the girl to see a doctor.
Later on the police found in the mountains her clothing, underwear and one dead dog. They speculate that the guys were some of the guys found in the car among the other bodies.
No more reports of anybody missing, since May 9.
There was a chase of some car later on that ended in a crash by Wal-mart and the guy escaped, but the car had guns, grenades and some police uniforms.
People had a lot of questions as what is he going to do? is the army coming here?? Started very organized, and later on everyone was screaming. The mexican mothers want more protections in the school areas and more vigilance. Accusing the police of abuse and not doing their jobs. They did not believe him that the state police and at some time the army has been in this area. It is true, we have seen it, but to convince people that are scared and angry is very difficult.
Anyway, he wanted to put a stop to all the rumours that just make people more scared, and they were going to give them a tel number to call and ask over and over to report anything unusual that they see, like strange activities in some houses, etc. guys with fancy cars when they obviously look like cholos. He ask over and over for cooperation from the people, he says that since they put the 800 number for people to report anonymously any criminal activities in January, only one call has come , so people are not reporting anything.
(My husband) and I came home because they were asking the same questions over and over, and we decided to come home. One thing is true, we need more police presence. He says there are 70 thousand people living in the Chapala area and he only has 200 police in his force and 28 cars, and there are 58 schools, so it is very evident that it is impossible to patrol the area.
He also said that he knows nothing of the Zetas. They left a message with the bodies claiming responsibility and the guys they got also said they belong to the Zetas Cartel.
Well I hope that the foreigner community should be more relaxed knowing that they are safe. I always said that this people are not stupid. They know the consequences of killing foreigners. He also said that nothing about this is political and is just a safety issue.
Well I think that is all I can remember. Of course there were tons of questions.
Let us all hope that life in this "Paradise" changes and we have our calm and pleasant town back again.
I really hope that they catch all these cabrones. who have disturbed our life and killed those innocent people it is hard to believe that there is people with the capacity of such evil.
take care.

Thanks for posting this. I was at the meeting but this helped clarify a number of things in my mind. However, I don't think the criticism of the interpreter was fair. This is a very difficult task and I thought she did an excellent job. A word-for-word translation would have been confusing at best.