Specter of a police state: Mexican torture videos reveal ties with US military contractors

The videos were first obtained by daily newspaper El Heraldo de León. In one of them, an officer can be seen forcing a subordinate to roll around in the dirt repeatedly to the point of exhaustion; then the advisor overseeing this pulls the man by his feet and drags him through a puddle of vomit. This punishment works, a trainee says to the camera. Clearly, this punishment is a form of psychological warfare designed to humiliate and demoralize the captive.

The police officers forced to withstand this brutal treatment belonged to an elite unit called Special Tactical Group (its Spanish initials are GET) of the León Municipal Police Force. The training took place in April 2006 and lasted for 12 days. León is in Guanajuato State.

A second video shows a blindfolded man having his head submerged in a hole filled with rats and feces. He gasps and moans for air, and has mineral water squirted up his nose. This technique is similar to waterboarding, whereby the victim undergoes near-drowning. The Mexican police are notorious for the use of this method.