A Mexican drug kingpin accused of killing 15 unarmed people pulls a gun out of a guard’s holster in open court and blasts several Mexican federales before he is gunned down himself.
The violent confrontation, which left a judge’s desk in splinters and bodies strewn about, didn’t actually unfold in a Mexico City court but in a dusty room with no ceiling at a secret location in Colorado.
It was a simulation played out by Mexican federal prison officers who have been in Colorado for the past two weeks for training by an elite Department of Corrections prisoner transport and security unit.
If all goes as planned in the U.S. State Department-funded program, the Mexican agents could soon use what they learn to survive in a country where soldiers from drug cartels regularly attack prisoner convoys with machine guns and hand grenades.
The 24 Mexican prison officers and their trainers agreed to let a reporter watch the training, provided their full names not be used to prevent retribution by drug gangs.
Jesus, 39, of Mexico City, said the drug cartels give money, drugs and guns to unmarried, unemployed young men “who don’t have anything to lose.” He said it has been difficult to get federal agents to fill the transport positions because it is so dangerous.
Now that they are getting the training they need and body armor and weapons, more are willing to take on the hazardous assignments, Jesus said.
“The training has been very valuable to us,” he said. “The job is becoming more than just a job. It’s becoming a career — like being a Marine.”
Jesus and the other Mexican federales will go back to their country and teach hundreds of officers what they learned at the Colorado training center, Jesus said. They also will train agents from Venezuela and Guatemala.
Roberto, the Colorado officer running the training program, said the training begins with some basics.
“Things we show them are all new to them,” Roberto said. “You train for the worst and hope for the best.”
The Mexican agents used simulation guns with “detergent” bullets that sting, Roberto said.
They learn how to discern real threats and to react in a split second. The officers receive weapons and tactical training, then practice what they learned in 30 field scenarios. Their actions are videotaped and critiqued, Roberto said.
They are trained to operate on a set of priorities to save bystanders, themselves, and prisoners, in that order. There are instances when they are outgunned in which the best recourse is to flee, Roberto said.
Much of what they learn is about strategy. Ambushes most often happen because of breaches in intelligence. Drug lords pay underpaid federal agents to get information about when transports happen.
In response, the Colorado authorities taught Mexican agents to limit how many prison officials know when transports happen, showed them how to use decoys and explained how to change when the transports happen. It makes sense sometimes to do them in the middle of the night.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
