We are back in D.C. Time to think about the time in Mexico City, which we intend to repeat every summer that we can.
Crime has gotten worse in the statistics, but not in the feel. The center of the city is as safe (or not) as ever.
But there are some signs of worse to come. Right after our arrival, there was a large-scale shootout between the Marines and a local gang called the Tláhuac Cartel, Tláhuac being a poor borough out on the edges of the city. (The new Line 12 runs there.)
The short version of the shootout isn’t ominous at all. The gang’s leader, Felipe “The Eyes” de Jesús, was dealing drugs on the UNAM campus. University officials complained to the feds, so the Marines started an investigation. (Yes, it is a problem that the Marines needed to handle the investigation instead of the federal police.) They found him, moved in, and everything went wrong. Tragic and possibly incompetent, but these things sadly can happen anywhere.
No, what’s worrisome are what else the gang was doing and what happened after the shootout. The gang wasn’t just selling drugs on a big college campus. Rather, it was engaged in extensive extortion of Tláhuac’s retail markets and taxi services. That is worrisome. Now, if taking down The Eyes ends that, then we do not have a problem. But right after the shootout that killed him, mototaxis controlled by the Tláhuac cartel blocked off roads and gang members set a large truck and three buses on fire. That does not sound like the organization’s grip on the borough has been broken.
What makes it worse is the mayor’s insistence that everything is fine, cartels don’t operate in Mexico City. Homicides leaped 25% this year. Just a blip? Possible, but unlikely in a city of this size. Now, I understand why Mancera insists on this, for reasons beyond the political. (He wants to run for president in 2018.) First, homicide was not that high (through September 2016) in the affected areas. Consider this map, from the indispensable Diego Valle. In 2015-16 there were only 19 reported killings in the sector where the shootout happened (outlined). That is a rate of 10.3 per 100,000, which is neither low nor high by American standards. The area is far from a no-go zone. And while it is clear from the overall time series (see below) that something happened in CDMX around August 2016, things do not look to be out-of-control.
So even though a federal report states that cartels do indeed operate in greater Mexico City (you can see a map of their territories here) the situation is not yet scary, at least not to a jaded child of the 1970s and 80s like myself.
I am, however, I think, French at heart. Mexico City may be under control in practice, but I do not fully understand how it stays under control in theory.
It suffers from the same corrupt and ineffectual police as the rest of the country. And it has had the same trouble making the new legal system work as a the rest of the country. So why does violence remain relatively low? After all, CDMX is safer than Washington, D.C., but D.C. has a decent police force and a functioning justice system. (For example, D.C. clears up about 70% of homicides. Mexico City, around half.) What then keeps a lid on the violence?
Until I can explain that, even if only in theory, I will remain nervous about the future.
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