Justice Takes a Holiday in Mexico City

A policeman pulls you over for a traffic violation. Your pulse quickens. You feel clammy. Later, you ask, why couldn’t the officer have picked on someone else?

But in Mexico, getting a ticket might be preferable to what usually happens.

It’s the last night of a recent vacation in Mexico City, for instance. A companion and I are scheduled to leave early the next morning for Guadalajara. Late in the evening we realize we have left a camera in a friend’s car on the other side of the city.

We set out to retrieve it about midnight, in a Volkswagen that drives just fine--down hill.

Eventually, we make it across town, pick up the camera and head back.

But the car’s problems worsen. Two of us find ourselves outside, pushing the car up some hills.

A Mexico City police cruiser with three officers inside slips into view behind us and tails us over the next crest. The cruiser’s red and blue flashers switch on.

Our driver pulls over. She and her male companion get out, whispering for us to remain inside and out of sight.

An officer first demands a driver’s license and registration information. She supplies the license but explains apologetically that her registration papers are at home.

The officer threatens to take us down to the police station. Our driver pleads that she has two guests who must catch a plane to Guadalajara in only a few hours.

The officer grunts a noncommittal reply and goes to the heart of the matter: Empty your purse, he orders.

The driver, a lifelong resident of Mexico City, does not blink an eye. She reaches into her purse, opens a wallet and hands over a wad of cash.

The officer pockets the money and, after telling us there is a pay telephone 5 miles away, returns to the patrol car and speeds off, leaving us stranded in the middle of the night.

To get to the telephone, we continue pushing the car, hoping along the way that Mexico City’s finest do not catch us again in the act of having a broken-down car and exact more “justice.�

Later, our driver won’t tell us how much she gave the officer. Nor did she express surprise at the transaction. “Es normal (it is normal),� she sighs.

Indeed, a Western diplomat in Mexico City, who does not want his name in print, says later that the brand of justice we have witnessed is routine.

Police officers in the Mexican capital commonly extort money from motorists who are stopped for traffic violations, he says.

“It’s corruption, it’s graft and it’s illegal,� the diplomat says, “but it goes on all the time.�

It happens, he adds, partly because the city’s police officers are underpaid, with starting salaries as low as $300 a month.

Oh.

But most Mexican citizens don’t mind paying the bribes, the diplomat says, because they generally amount to what a fine would cost and save the hassle of going to court.

Right.