Police officers in the Mexican town of Alvarado were recently stripped of their firearms and armed with slingshots and rocks instead, after most of them failed their control tests and were deemed unfit for service.

墨西哥阿尔瓦拉多市的警员最近被解除了配枪，代之以弹弓和石子。原因是他们中的大多数人没通过自控力测试，被认为不适合执行公务。

After only 30 officers of the 130-member police department in Alvarado managed to pass their control tests for the use of firearms, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, governor of the Mexican state of Verracruz, decided to strip the entire department of firearms.

阿尔瓦拉多市警察局的130名警员中只有30名通过了使用枪械的自控力测试，墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯州州长米格尔•安赫尔•尤尼斯•利纳雷斯决定解除整个警察局的武器装备。

The governor’s office has confirmed that similar actions have been taken in other municipalities. However, some local officials have accused Yunes Linares of stripping local law enforcement of what little protection they had against the criminal organisations in Verracruz. In Alvarado, the officers were armed with slingshots and rocks.

州长办公室已证实，其他城市也采取过类似的措施。但是，当地的一些官员指责尤尼斯•利纳雷斯将当地执法机关对抗韦拉克鲁斯州犯罪组织非常有限的防卫工具给剥夺了。于是，阿尔瓦拉多市给警员们配备了弹弓和石子。

Bogar Ruiz Rosas, the mayor of Alvarado, protested the decision to have his local police force disarmed by organizing a symbolic handover event where he issued police their new sidearms – slingshots and rocks. During this event, Rosas argued that most of those officers who failed their control tests did so because the department is currently made up of mostly newly recruited officers.

阿尔瓦拉多市市长伯葛•鲁伊斯•罗萨斯在发给警察新“武器”——弹弓和石子时还组织了一个象征性的交接仪式，以抗议州长解除本市警察武装的决定。在仪式上，罗萨斯表示，大多数警员没能通过自控力测试是因为目前警局内大多是新招进来的员工。

没有配枪 墨西哥警察局给警员配备弹弓 Photo: Alvarado municipal government

"Today we delivered slingshots to our municipal police,” the mayor told reporters present at the handover event. “The citizen governor made the decision to take all the weapons, which disqualified him completely, as it violates our autonomy. It’s clear to us that this is a totally political issue and we have to be prepared to carry out our work, professionally, as you have seen us do it.”

在交接仪式上，市长对到场的记者们说：“今天我们向本市的警察发放弹弓。州长决定解除警局的所有武装，这说明他是个完全不合格的州长，因为这侵犯了我们的自治权。对我们来说这完全是一个政治问题，我们必须准备好开展我们的本职工作，正如你们所看到的。”

Photos of the Alvarado police officers wearing their unusual sidearms and videos of Mayor Ruiz Rosas handing them out went viral on Mexican social media, and prompted a response from the Verracruz government. In an official statement, governor Ángel Yunes Linares warned policemen in Alvarado that they cannot continue doing their job unarmed and that continuing to do so would be against the law, and they could be subject to prosecution.

阿尔瓦拉多市警察佩戴不寻常的武器装备的照片和鲁伊斯•罗萨斯向他们发放弹弓的视频在墨西哥社交媒体上传疯了，促使韦拉克鲁斯州政府做出反应。在一份官方声明中，州长利纳雷斯警告阿尔瓦拉多市的警察说，没有武器就不能继续执行公务，如果继续执行公务将是违法的，并会被起诉。

But don’t slingshots count as weapons in the right hands? Plus, this wouldn’t be the first time Mexican police would have to fight crime with slingshots. In 2007, over 60 slingshots were issued to officers in the violent border city of Tijuana, after their firearms had been confiscated by army soldiers, on allegations of collusion with drug traffickers.

不过，弹弓到了行家手里也能算作武器，不是吗？况且，这也不是墨西哥警察第一次被迫用弹弓打击犯罪。2007年，在暴力犯罪猖獗的边境城市提华纳，因当地警员被指控和毒贩勾结，被军队没收了武器，当地政府就向警员发放了60多个弹弓。