Cops, soldiers and guns

I don’t like to take pictures of people with guns. I guess I’m always worried that they might shoot back, but as a result I don’t have any pictures to go with today’s blog entry. Take it from me, however, there are lots of guns around here. Today, for example, we saw two naval warships right off the coast, a busload of cops across the street from our hotel and numerous cop cars whizzing up and down the avenue. All of these entities were heavily armed and armored. I don’t know who holds the bullet-proof-vest contract for the Cancun district, but I suspect they are making a lot of money keeping the cops safe.

Yesterday we saw military helicopters touring up and down the coast. Apparently Cancun would be a bad place to dabble in crime, since there would be lots of people trying to catch you. The other night, for example, we were in a taxi that got pulled over by the cops for a random inspection. As the inspector waved us through without looking anywhere, the driver asked me, “Are you carrying?”

No, I was not carrying and I don’t do drugs. But I guess one reason for all the police presence is to keep some sort of a lid on drug trade. The other reason is the big climate summit going on right now in Cancun. Apparently the area is full of world leaders and the authorities want to make sure they all get home safely.

The most interesting cop sighting was in the mall across the street from our hotel. There’s a fancy department store inside, and the store has guards at all of the doors. I assume that these guys are not real cops, and as a result they have only small side arms rather than automatic weapons. They do have nice white uniforms, right down to special all-white nightsticks. If you’re going to get beaten up by a guard with a nightstick, I think the white stick would be a good choice since it probably shows blood more quickly than a black nightstick. But once again, I really don’t want to get whacked and I imagine you don’t either.

Fortunately the cops around here tend to be friendly. Last Thursday we walked out of our way as we headed to dinner in order to avoid walking among cops milling about with machine guns. By today we were used to them and we walked up to one of the guys stationed in the street in front of our hotel. I’m happy to report that he was open to our approach and knew where we’d find a bus stop and how to get to our restaurant. Still, it’s really hard for me to get used to all the automatic weapons kicking around here. If all the guns are intended to make me feel safe, then they are not working!