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Mexican Police Hit the Books With the Help of Radio Codes
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One recent afternoon, officers streamed past the statue, about 20 of them bounding up a set of stairs and crowding into a spare second-floor conference room. Their bulky bulletproof vests rode up around their necks as they squeezed around a long table. Three crates, each holding brand-new copies of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," stood against the wall.
The lesson started with a game. Roberto Pérez Ortiz, a public affairs specialist who looks like a college professor with his sports coat and stylish round glasses, asked the officers to make up a story, each contributing one line. The officers started conventionally. But P¿rez Ortiz stopped them, reminding them that they were about to enter Garc¿a M¿rquez's magical-realist realm.
"Destroy the narrative line!" Pérez Ortiz demanded.
The officers, some of whom had been watching with glazed eyes, brightened.
"A child died," said a deep-voiced patrolman.
José Luis Santoyo Herrera, a baby-faced officer stuffed into his black bulletproof vest, chimed in: "And then the child got up and ran away!"
His fellow officers cracked up. Pérez Ortiz smiled. He had them now.
'Don Quixote,' Anyone?
Police supervisors in Nezahualcoyotl tried to jump-start tutoring sessions more than three years ago. They had grand plans about introducing rank-and-file officers to great literature.
But it didn't work.
Officers couldn't get into the material. They were distracted. Bored.
That's when a group of supervisors came up with the idea of translating great novels using police radio codes. Juan Meléndez Mecalco, a regional chief with a literary flair, dived into "Don Quixote" and produced his own little police-style masterpiece. Many of the officers were still resistant. But for others, it was a spark. Suddenly, classrooms that had been deathly quiet came alive.
The big surprise, though, was that officers started asking for more books -- and they didn't mind if they weren't translated into police code.
