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Tijuana Police, With Their Families, Plea for Return of Weapons

About 150 Tijuana Municipal officers and their families asked federal authorities again today to please return municipal officers' weapons. Federal officials took the guns away more than two weeks ago

Tijuana Police, With Their Families, Plea for Return of Weapons

(Photo: Tijuana Municipal Police officers, with their families, protest their disarmament to federal authorities. Amy Isackson/KPBS ).

About 150 Tijuana Municipal officers and their families asked federal authorities again today to please return municipal officers’ weapons. Federal officials took the guns away more than two weeks ago as part of a massive crackdown on organized crime. KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson has details.

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Tijuana’s municipal police have been angling for public sympathy since federal officials took their guns away. Last week, they sent out photos of officers using sticks, stones and golf clubs to protect themselves. This week, they brought out their children.

Twelve-year-old Yareli Nieves is the daughter of an assistant police chief in Tijuana. She says kids tease her for that at school.

Nieves says her friends say the police help drug traffickers. She says when the police show up at a shopping center or a restaurant her friends run away because they’re afraid.

Nieves says her dad tells her there are some bad police officers. But she says her dad is one of the good ones.

There’s still no word on when federal authorities will return the Municipal force’s weapons.

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Amy Isackson, KPBS News.