MEXICO CITY – Two auxiliary police officers from Mexico City were allegedly attacked by the head of the central Cuauhtémoc mayor’s office, Sandra Cuevas, the Capital Prosecutor’s Office reported this Saturday, which also indicated that an investigation was opened into the facts.
“An investigation was initiated following a complaint filed by two auxiliary police officers of the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) against the public servant in charge of the Cuauhtémoc (Cuevas) mayor’s office for the crime of deprivation of liberty, abuse of authority, robbery and whatever results,” Ulises Lara, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s Office, reported in a message to the media.
Lara explained that both agents were summoned to attend a meeting with the mayor of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) regarding the recent actions to reorganize informal commerce in the historic center of the city.
“After the interviews given by those affected, it was established in the inquiries that both uniformed men were attacked both verbally and physically on repeated occasions by the head of the mayor’s office (Cuevas) as well as by several men who were there ”, indicated the spokesman.
In addition, their transmission radios were removed, according to what they said, and they were “deprived of their liberty” on the mayor’s instructions for an hour in the mayor’s building.
A colleague of the police officers, who filed a complaint with the Kidnapping Crime Investigation Prosecutor’s Office, was outside the building and asked for help when he learned that they were locked up, to which security personnel the SSC went and finally, “after blows and shoves”, both agents managed to get out.
The incident occurs after in previous days there were differences between the capital government and the mayor about the comp authority in the ordering of the sale on public roads in an area located in the historic center.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, a meeting had been agreed in the coming days to carry out the guidelines on the subject and to know to which instance the actions correspond.
On Friday, through social networks, there was a confrontation between Cuevas and Dunia Ludlow, undersecretary of Mayoral Programs and Reorganization of the capital.
“Dunia Ludlow, right now my team from the General Directorate of Government is in the cabbage Center, looking for work tables with you to control trade on public roads. I ask you, do not oppose and do not threaten my staff with the public force of Claudia Sheinbaum (head of government of Mexico City), “wrote the mayor in a tweet.
Furthermore, in other publications he accused Ludlow of having threatened his “people”.
For his part, Ludlow accused Cuevas of wanting to have competition in street vending “to continue collecting fees and extort money” and shared a photograph showing city hall staff Cuauhtémoc next to a truck and wrote: “It is understood that in the face of ineptitude, money comes first. But the truth is what it is: NOBODY requests work groups with operations and vans to remove merchants in an area in which they do NOT have powers”.
For the moment, Cuevas has not commented on the investigation opened by the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office.