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Mexico outraged over corrupt police, kidnappings
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-22 12:05

Anger also boiled over last week when residents of the central Mexico town of Tlapanala managed to surround and disarm a gang of seven kidnappers posing as police. They held them for 24 hours, pounding the men to bloody pulps.

Mexico abandoned the death penalty long ago and considers life sentences to be cruel and unusual punishment. Only in 2005 did Mexico agree to extradite suspects facing life sentences in the United States. But this e in drug trafficking, kidnapping and money laundering, among other things, with no central control or any one gang dominating any of the criminal activities.

"That is why kidnapping has grown more competitive, with kidnappers using much more violence against each other and against the victims, in a bid to gain territory, markets or dominance," the report says.

An anti-crime march in 2004 drew more than a quarter-million people and damaged the presidential aspirations of the capital's mayor at the time, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Another such mass march has been called for August 30.

Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino worries that growing anger could lead to more vigilante and mob justice.

"It is clear that the public is indignant, is angry, and it has a right to be," Mourino said.

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