TIJUANA A new scandal is rocking the city's police department even as the legal case continues against 15 officers involved in the incident captured on video of a female suspect forced to strip for them at a substation.
The new case involves a woman who filed a complaint that she was humiliated by municipal police officers for ten hours and obligated to strip by a female jail guard while was under arrest.
The City Attorney's Office announced Thursday afternoon that it had indefinitely suspended three public servants in two cases a judge, a female jail guard and a police officer – for failing to do their duty and respect the law "since it was proven that they participated in acts contrary to their obligations."
The director of the Responsibilities unit in the City Attorney's Office, Jesús Antonio Chávez, said a complaint had been filed against the judge, the jail guard, and six municipal police officers.
"The victim explained that she was detained for a participating in a street fight and transported to the substation in the Zona Norte, where she was presented before Judge Marco Antonio Quihuis Campillo. He did not allow her to give her account of what had happened but imposed ten hours of detention at the (municipal jail) without the possibility of substituting the sentence with a fine," Chávez said.
Once at the jail, Chávez continued, municipal officers humiliated her when she requested an opportunity to phone a family member. Afterward, the jail guard Sandra Sánchez Miramontes threatened her if she did not take off her clothes in one of the cells, which she did.
In a separate case, police officer David Alejandro Sarmiento Ávila was suspended for allegedly being involved in an accident in which a seven-year-old girl and her father, 37, were injured.
He said the officer was detained and taken to an investigative office called the Ministerio Público. There, he tested positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines, "which is considered a cause (for the accident) and which obligates us to begin legal proceedings against him," Chávez said.
Nearly 200 police officers have been removed from their posts for a variety of reasons since the start of Mayor Carlos Bustamante's administration in November of 2010. One case stands out, however.
In April, police officers forced a young woman who had been detained to strip to music in the substation of La Presa Rural as they cheered her on, an incident caught on a cellphone video camera. A total of 15 officers, including a commander, were suspended and the case continues under investigation.
The case, which came to be called "Presagate," reached the state's Legislature, where lawmakers tried to prosecute the city's attorney, Yolanda Enríquez, for allegedly covering up the incident, which was revealed by a newspaper a month after it had happened.
Since the Bustamante's administration began, a total of 195police municipal police officers were suspended from their job while they were under investigation for a variety of offenses, 18 suspected of being involved in organized crime. Of those, 37 have been fired so far.
The officers were suspended during the ongoing systematic program to weed out corruption from the Municipal Public Safety Department, said spokesman Julián Domínguez.
He said 38 officers were suspended for abuse of authority, 11 for extortion, 18 for participating in organized crime, two or sexual abuse, 11 for testing positive for drugs and the rest for assuming duties they were not entitled to have.
In the previous administration of Mayor Jorge Ramos (2007 to 2010), nearly 600 officers were removed from their jobs when the local government began the unprecedented program to "clean up" the department through a variety of tests.
Omar.millan@sandieogred.com
