Mexican Military Takes Over Juarez Police Department

JUAREZ, Mexico — More than 7,000 Mexican soldiers are now on patrol in Juarez, and the Mexican military is now in control of the Juarez Police Department. More than 2,300 federal police are also patrolling the city, the Associated Press reports.

Mondaymorning, Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz announced the new police chief as well as a new director of police and a new intelligence director for the city, all of whom are military.

Gen. Julian Rivera Breton was sworn in as city public safety secretary, and Col. Alfonso Cristobal Melgar was sworn in as head of the city police force.

Many in Juarez were skeptical at first but now seem to support the military takeover.

“I think that most people are waiting for the police department to be restructured in a form where we don’t have the corruption,” said Edgar Roman, the news director of Channel 44 in Juarez, ABC-7’s news partners.

“There is a lot of hope that once the military is in charge of the police department is going to have a lot of the crime go down, because they were talking about a lot of the police officers being a part of the crime,” he said.

One Juarez resident said he thinks the city will be safer with the military in charge.

But Roman said many are still skeptical and waiting for something big to happen.

“I think people that are committing these crimes are still here, they have not left. I think they are trying to find out how the police department is going to restructure themselves, what kind of operations they are going to have on the streets, what kind of response…nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he said.

One newspaper headline read, “Esperan Deserciones,” or mass desertions are expected from the Juarez municipal police because of the military takeover.