Navy Official, Tijuana Police Chief Hold Talks

The commander of the San Diego naval base met for the first time Wednesday with Tijuana’s new police chief, but he said they did not discuss the three-month-old curfew for servicemen visiting Tijuana or the case of a sailor who said he was beaten, robbed and held incommunicado overnight last month by men dressed in police uniforms.

Neither Commodore E. Inman (Hoagy) Carmichael nor Police Chief Gerardo Sosa Olachea would go into detail concerning their hourlong meeting in the office of U.S. Consul General Robert D. Emmons in Tijuana.

“It was a very pleasant and productive meeting,” Carmichael said through a spokesman. He said he was “very impressed with the police chief, his credentials for this job, his future plans for operating the Tijuana police force and his genuine interest in helping Americans, civilians or servicemen, in police problems they might encounter while visiting Tijuana.”

Master Chief Billy Kinder, a spokesman for the naval base, said Carmichael and Sosa Olachea “had never met before. It was more of a personal visit than a getting-down-to-business meeting. They exchanged telephone numbers . . . They promised to meet again.”

In October, after receiving increasing reports of extortion attempts by Tijuana police, Carmichael placed Tijuana off limits to military personnel from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily.

Rejected Pleas In December, Carmichael turned down requests by Tijuana business and tourism leaders to lift the curfew, saying that it was having its desired effect in reducing reports of police abuse against servicemen.

A few weeks later, a Navy petty officer reported that he and his girlfriend were detained during a Christmas shopping trip to Tijuana and held overnight in nondescript rooms by men who were dressed in police uniforms. The sailor said the uniformed men forced him to stand all night, repeatedly hit him and threatened to burn him with cigarettes.

The sailor, who declined to be identified publicly, filed a complaint with Carmichael, who lodged it with the police chief through the U.S. consulate.

But the police chief and Kinder said Wednesday that nothing has come of the complaint because the sailor had declined to go to Mexico to talk with the police chief directly.

“The police chief extended an invitation to him to come to the police station in Tijuana and he declined,” Kinder said. “We are disappointed he has not gone, but his refusal to do so has not hurt his credibility. We still consider him a very reliable person. But we’re not going to force him to go.”

Sosa Olachea said that he cannot pursue the complaint without the victim.

“If they have a complaint, they should bring the sailor to me so I can talk to him,” Sosa Olachea said. “Where is the sailor? I haven’t seen him.”

Sosa Olachea took over as police chief Nov. 28 after the former chief resigned in the wake of the controversy over police conduct. He has said he is trying to modernize the department, increase police training and salaries and form an internal affairs committee to handle future charges of corruption.

Sosa Olachea also implemented a program over the Christmas holidays to escort drunk drivers home rather than arrest them. He said that when American servicemen are detained for public drunkenness, he is turning them over to the Shore Patrol.