It’s not rocket science… or even military science

From Jornada de Jalisco comes the latest capture of organized gangsters.  What’s interesting about the story is that it is just old-fashioned police work, not some military operation that brought down these guys.

Basically, for those who don’t read Spanish, the Jalisco State Police chased two bullet-proof SUVs (with Texas plates — stolen or from Texas it doesn’t say) down the highway, where the gangsters crossed into Guanajuanto State, and where they were surrounded, and 14 of them arrewted and taken to jail.  A few escaped but that’s to be expected.  The feds and the Army were involved in the final showdown, but once again, it shows that the way to catch gangsters is not to treat them as an army, but as common criminals.

The Guanajunto State Police recoved — besides the two Texas SUVs — fout AK-47s, three AR-15s, a .38 pistol, several bulletproof jackets, a grenada launcher (grenade launcher???) 1,031 bullets and 96,500 pesos in cash.

Here in Sinaloa, police happened to stumble upon a bit over 26 million dollars in cash during a routine patrol.  In this case, the coppers were soldiers, but even so… it’s not military science involved here, but just normal police work that’s stopping the gangsters.  And, in this case, no one caught the money guys — leading some to suggest the “discovery” was a payoff to the feds.

If the cost of doing business for the gangsters is high, I suppose this was in lieu of taxes, but what’s most important is that the successful police operations DO NOT REQUIRE special U.S. equipment or militarization of the police.  It doesn’t require new police agencies, curtailment of civil rights, a whole series of new laws  or a national security apparatus.  It just requires policemen doing normal police stuff.