Mexico Gives 1,000 Cops Walking Papers, Hoping to Reduce Corruption

More than 40,000 people have died since Mexico escalated its drug war in 2006.

Almost a thousand police officers suspected of corruption were dismissed from their jobs over the last two weeks.

(MEXICO CITY) - Drug cartels in Mexico have all but taken over the Gulf coast state of Veracruz which remains under a deadly siege. Facing tall odds in their search for a viable solution, authorities have refocused efforts on getting rid of bad police officers..

Arturo Bermudez, the police chief in Veracruz, says just under a thousand 980 state agents have been terminated over the past couple of weeks for failing lie detector tests and other evaluations that cast doubt on their integrity as law enforcement officers. So far, according to reports, almost three fourths of the officers still have not been tested.

The announcement about the terminations came Tuesday, that is four days after Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared that the state of Veracruz had been turned over to the brutal Zetas drug cartel. Los Zetas broke away from the Mexican Army special forces a little over three years ago, and their methods at terrorism are unrivaled, so much so in fact that vigilante groups and other cartels have specifically targeted people affiliated with the Zetas.

More than 40,000 people have died since Mexico escalated its drug war in 2006, cartel crime has gone through the ceiling and Mexican officials say they have received little in terms of cooperation from Washington, in their search for answers about U.S. federal programs to arm the deadly cartels.

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