The Post on La Familia

Here's a long article about the rise of la Familia in the Washington Post. It mentions the arraigo that I discussed yesterday, implying that 40 days is the limit for detention without an indictment. The mayors arrested last month in Michoacán for their links to la Familia are still being held without charges. This seems, if not openly abusive, at least unnecessary. If the arrests of the mayors were the culmination of a exhaustive, months-long investigation, then why couldn't charges be filed on May 26th, when all the officials were detained?

The Post also refers to la Familia's "very strong presence" in Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas. I believe reporters should either press for more specificity on these vague sorts of descriptions or not print them at all. What does a "presence" entail? Are there active members of la Familia selling drugs on the street corners of Chicago's West Side? Or is la Familia the supplier for already existing gangs? If it's the latter, that doesn't really tell us that much. Homegrown gangs have been selling cocaine and heroin in American cities for decades, and none of it was manufactured here. The mere fact that the Latin Kings buy their stuff from Michoacán middlemen instead of their rivals in Sinaloa or Cali (if that indeed is all the presence amounts to) doesn't tell us a whole lot.