If You Want To Know What Disbanding The Police Looks Like, Look At Mexico

[Ubiquitous]

The rise of vigilante groups in Mexico offers a hint of what
happens when institutions fail and civil society collapses.
America should be paying attention.

One of the most visible and insistent demands of the Black Lives Matter
movement is the abolition or disbandment of the police—or at the very
least defunding them, which taken to the extreme would amount to the
same thing. “Abolish the police” has become a rallying cry among
protesters and a litmus test for elected officials seeking to ally with
them.

What comes after the police have been abolished remains unclear.
Protesters and politicians alike are hazy on details, preferring
instead to talk about “reimagining public safety” and throwing around
vague terms like “community policing.”

Of course, in concrete terms what would happen if a city actually
disbanded its police department, as the Minneapolis City Council
pledged to do over the weekend, is that the county sheriff’s office or
the state police—or perhaps even federal law enforcement—would step
into the vacuum and the city would have almost no say in how it was
policed or what policies county and state law enforcement agencies
adopted.

But let’s say these ultra-progressive municipal governments could get
their wish and abolish the police in their cities entirely. What would
happen? Inevitably, an armed group would emerge and impose a monopoly
on the use of force.

If you want an idea of how that works, look to our southern neighbor,
Mexico, where over the past decade endemically corrupt police
departments in some areas have been supplanted by autodefensas, or
local self-defense militias. But before you get too excited about the
prospect of paramilitary autodefensas policing American cities,
understand that in Mexico these groups are a mixed bag at best—and at
worst they’re not much better than the corrupt local police and cartel
gunmen they replaced. More importantly, their mere presence in Mexico
was and is a disturbing sign of societal decay.

The Rise And Fall Of Mexico’s Autodefensas

To understand why, a bit of background is needed. The modern
autodefensas movement in Mexico arose during some of the most violent
years of Mexico’s ongoing drug war. In 2013, a doctor from the cartel-
ravaged state of Michoacán, José Manuel Mireles Valverde, organized one
of the first self-defense militias to fight against the Knights Templar
Cartel. He initially recruited ordinary men, shop keepers and farmers,
to hunt down cartel henchmen and drive them out of their towns.


Initially, these ad-hoc militias met with some success, capturing or
killing members of the Knights Templar, setting up roadblocks and
ambushes, and expanding the number of militias operating throughout
Michoacán. But as the violence in the region increased, the militias
eventually caught the attention of the Mexican government, which
deployed the military against both cartels and autodefensas. Mireles
was badly injured in a plane crash in 2014 and was soon pushed out of a
leadership role. Later that year the government ordered autodefensas to
disarm as part of an effort to bring them under the control of state-
controlled Fuerza Rural, or Rural Police Force.

By then, the line between autodefensas and cartels had begun to blur.
The militias had been infiltrated by cartel members, including former
members of the Knights Templar who knew the cartel was losing power.
One former Knights Templar member, Nicolás Sierra Santana, known as “El
Gordo,” joined the autodefensas movement early on but left when the
government ordered them to disarm. He and other militia members went on
to create a new drug cartel, “Los Viagras,” which today is affiliated
with the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Some of these self-defense militias were, for lack of a better term,
fake autodefensas. In 2014, vigilante leader Luis Antonio Torres,
nicknamed “Simón El Americano,” clashed with a lime grower named
Hipolito Mora, who along with Mireles was one of the first founders of
autodefensas. A large-scale shootout between the two groups in Tierra
Caliente left Mora’s son dead, and later both leaders, along with some
followers, turned themselves in to authorities.

The clash came just as the government was flooding the region with
federal troops to prevent a regional civil war between armed vigilante
groups—a move that many, including Catholic Bishop Miguel Patino
Velazquez of Apatzingan, condemned, saying the government was willing
to disarm self-defense groups but not the Knights Templar or its
predecessor, La Familia Michoacana. Patino’s outrage underscored the
deep distrust of institutions many residents of Michoacán had—and still
have.

Even so, the autodefensas movement quickly went from being an organic
uprising against a vicious cartel to a vigilante free-for-all. As The
Guardian reported at the time:

Violence in the state has continued as government efforts to
institutionalise the vigilantes into a rural police force have
struggled in the face of deep rivalries between some of the
leaders. The new rural police has also been damaged by multiple
accusations that a significant number of commanders and
officers have links to the Caballeros [Knights Templar] or
other gangs operating in the region.

As the government stepped in to control the autodefensas movement, it
became increasingly clear that cartel members were joining self-defense
militias, especially in Michoacán and neighboring Guerrero state.
Sometimes it worked in the opposite direction. Lacking resources and
weapons, self-defense militias would turn to drug cartels for
financing, and would later be used by drug lords as proxy forces
against their rivals.

Today, autodefensas remain active in parts of Mexico but they have
largely melded into the ever-shifting patchwork of gangs, cartel off-
shoots, and corrupt local police forces vying for power and territory.
The fragmenting of Mexico’s criminal gangs and armed groups has helped
fuel rising violence in recent years, with this year on track to break
last year’s record for homicides. As far as violence and corruption go,
things are worse in Mexico now than they were when Mireles formed the
first autodefensa group.

That is to say, the rise of self-defense militias in Mexico, no less
than the rise of cartels, is a direct result of the collapse of civil
authority. Absent a functioning state, militias are no more accountable
to the general public than a drug cartel—and no more capable of
resisting corruption than the local or federal police.

Autodefensas Are A Sign Of Societal Decay

The brief history recounted above should serve as a reminder to
Americans flirting with the idea of abolishing the police, which for
BLM activists isn’t just a slogan. Aside from Minneapolis—where on
Saturday the mayor, Jacob Frey, was booed and heckled out of a rally
after saying he didn’t support “the full abolition” of the police—
cities like Los Angeles, Portland, and Toronto are taking steps to
reduce funding for law enforcement, in some cases redirecting tens of
millions of dollars to various community programs while slashing police
budgets.

Make no mistake, “defund the police” doesn’t mean “reform the police.”
It means take the money away, which means fewer police on the street—
and in the case of Minneapolis, apparently no municipal police on the
street.

That local elected officials would even consider such policies is
deeply troubling. America might not be a failing state overrun with
drug cartels and corrupt politicians, but it is sliding in the
direction of Mexico. We have declining levels of confidence in our
institutions and declining levels of trust across society in general.
The fabric of our civic life is fraying badly, and calls to abolish the
police are a sign of that.

Despite the insistence of the protesters, getting rid of law
enforcement won’t usher in a more just or equitable order. But it will
invite new arrangements for security, as it did in Mexico. These
arrangements, however well-intentioned, will fall prey to the same
corruption and unaccountability as the forces they replace, especially
if the underlying causes of societal decay are left to fester.


--
Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they
love this country.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Post by Ubiquitous
The rise of vigilante groups in Mexico offers a hint of what
happens when institutions fail and civil society collapses.
America should be paying attention.
One of the most visible and insistent demands of the Black Lives Matter
movement is the abolition or disbandment of the police—or at the very
least defunding them, which taken to the extreme would amount to the
same thing. “Abolish the police” has become a rallying cry among
protesters and a litmus test for elected officials seeking to ally with
them.
What comes after the police have been abolished remains unclear.
Protesters and politicians alike are hazy on details, preferring
instead to talk about “reimagining public safety” and throwing around
vague terms like “community policing.”
Of course, in concrete terms what would happen if a city actually
disbanded its police department, as the Minneapolis City Council
pledged to do over the weekend, is that the county sheriff’s office or
the state police—or perhaps even federal law enforcement—would step
into the vacuum and the city would have almost no say in how it was
policed or what policies county and state law enforcement agencies
adopted.
But let’s say these ultra-progressive municipal governments could get
their wish and abolish the police in their cities entirely. What would
happen? Inevitably, an armed group would emerge and impose a monopoly
on the use of force.
If you want an idea of how that works, look to our southern neighbor,
Mexico, where over the past decade endemically corrupt police
departments in some areas have been supplanted by autodefensas, or
local self-defense militias. But before you get too excited about the
prospect of paramilitary autodefensas policing American cities,
understand that in Mexico these groups are a mixed bag at best—and at
worst they’re not much better than the corrupt local police and cartel
gunmen they replaced. More importantly, their mere presence in Mexico
was and is a disturbing sign of societal decay.
The Rise And Fall Of Mexico’s Autodefensas
To understand why, a bit of background is needed. The modern
autodefensas movement in Mexico arose during some of the most violent
years of Mexico’s ongoing drug war. In 2013, a doctor from the cartel-
ravaged state of Michoacán, José Manuel Mireles Valverde, organized one
of the first self-defense militias to fight against the Knights Templar
Cartel. He initially recruited ordinary men, shop keepers and farmers,
to hunt down cartel henchmen and drive them out of their towns.
Initially, these ad-hoc militias met with some success, capturing or
killing members of the Knights Templar, setting up roadblocks and
ambushes, and expanding the number of militias operating throughout
Michoacán. But as the violence in the region increased, the militias
eventually caught the attention of the Mexican government, which
deployed the military against both cartels and autodefensas. Mireles
was badly injured in a plane crash in 2014 and was soon pushed out of a
leadership role. Later that year the government ordered autodefensas to
disarm as part of an effort to bring them under the control of state-
controlled Fuerza Rural, or Rural Police Force.
By then, the line between autodefensas and cartels had begun to blur.
The militias had been infiltrated by cartel members, including former
members of the Knights Templar who knew the cartel was losing power.
One former Knights Templar member, Nicolás Sierra Santana, known as “El
Gordo,” joined the autodefensas movement early on but left when the
government ordered them to disarm. He and other militia members went on
to create a new drug cartel, “Los Viagras,” which today is affiliated
with the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Some of these self-defense militias were, for lack of a better term,
fake autodefensas. In 2014, vigilante leader Luis Antonio Torres,
nicknamed “Simón El Americano,” clashed with a lime grower named
Hipolito Mora, who along with Mireles was one of the first founders of
autodefensas. A large-scale shootout between the two groups in Tierra
Caliente left Mora’s son dead, and later both leaders, along with some
followers, turned themselves in to authorities.
The clash came just as the government was flooding the region with
federal troops to prevent a regional civil war between armed vigilante
groups—a move that many, including Catholic Bishop Miguel Patino
Velazquez of Apatzingan, condemned, saying the government was willing
to disarm self-defense groups but not the Knights Templar or its
predecessor, La Familia Michoacana. Patino’s outrage underscored the
deep distrust of institutions many residents of Michoacán had—and still
have.
Even so, the autodefensas movement quickly went from being an organic
uprising against a vicious cartel to a vigilante free-for-all. As The
Violence in the state has continued as government efforts to
institutionalise the vigilantes into a rural police force have
struggled in the face of deep rivalries between some of the
leaders. The new rural police has also been damaged by multiple
accusations that a significant number of commanders and
officers have links to the Caballeros [Knights Templar] or
other gangs operating in the region.
As the government stepped in to control the autodefensas movement, it
became increasingly clear that cartel members were joining self-defense
militias, especially in Michoacán and neighboring Guerrero state.
Sometimes it worked in the opposite direction. Lacking resources and
weapons, self-defense militias would turn to drug cartels for
financing, and would later be used by drug lords as proxy forces
against their rivals.
Today, autodefensas remain active in parts of Mexico but they have
largely melded into the ever-shifting patchwork of gangs, cartel off-
shoots, and corrupt local police forces vying for power and territory.
The fragmenting of Mexico’s criminal gangs and armed groups has helped
fuel rising violence in recent years, with this year on track to break
last year’s record for homicides. As far as violence and corruption go,
things are worse in Mexico now than they were when Mireles formed the
first autodefensa group.
That is to say, the rise of self-defense militias in Mexico, no less
than the rise of cartels, is a direct result of the collapse of civil
authority. Absent a functioning state, militias are no more accountable
to the general public than a drug cartel—and no more capable of
resisting corruption than the local or federal police.
Autodefensas Are A Sign Of Societal Decay
The brief history recounted above should serve as a reminder to
Americans flirting with the idea of abolishing the police, which for
BLM activists isn’t just a slogan. Aside from Minneapolis—where on
Saturday the mayor, Jacob Frey, was booed and heckled out of a rally
after saying he didn’t support “the full abolition” of the police—
cities like Los Angeles, Portland, and Toronto are taking steps to
reduce funding for law enforcement, in some cases redirecting tens of
millions of dollars to various community programs while slashing police
budgets.
Make no mistake, “defund the police” doesn’t mean “reform the police.”
It means take the money away, which means fewer police on the street—
and in the case of Minneapolis, apparently no municipal police on the
street.
That local elected officials would even consider such policies is
deeply troubling. America might not be a failing state overrun with
drug cartels and corrupt politicians, but it is sliding in the
direction of Mexico. We have declining levels of confidence in our
institutions and declining levels of trust across society in general.
The fabric of our civic life is fraying badly, and calls to abolish the
police are a sign of that.
Despite the insistence of the protesters, getting rid of law
enforcement won’t usher in a more just or equitable order. But it will
invite new arrangements for security, as it did in Mexico. These
arrangements, however well-intentioned, will fall prey to the same
corruption and unaccountability as the forces they replace, especially
if the underlying causes of societal decay are left to fester.

Good point and I likened it to Somalia where they degenerated into WAR
LORDS running the factions.... this is what the MARXISTS want for us.
If we are killing each other then they are free to take over the world.