« Colombian rum and bomb-sniffing dogs | Main | Who am I? »
March 8, 2005
El Demonio y la Senorita Prym
Diego Felipe Gallego Martinez is a man who likes to read. At a corner of his mahogany desk, within arm's reach, are two equally high piles of books. Harvard Business Review's "Liderazgo," or "Leadership," is a must-have management reference book, Martinez told me; Paulo Coelho's "El Demonio y la Senorita Prym" is for when he needs to reflect.
Colonel Martinez is the commander of Bogota's Community Police program, a man of soft speech who never averts his gaze when he's talking to you. His office is in a single-story brick house on the northern edge of a park, a boxy construction colored a fading shade of pink. Martinez is 38, but has 19 years of police experience, including three years of patrol in Medellin during the time Pablo Escobar's capos killed cops for kicks. When I asked if he ever feared for his safety, he told me about a night he and two friends were cornered by a menacing type in downtown San Francisco (?!?), and how he felt afraid. Must have been some scary dude, for he frightened a police officer who works in one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Martinez didn't want me to be a victim of the paseo millionario, or millionaire's ride, the flash kidnapping-for-cash scheme run by the crooked cab drivers of Bogota, so he ordered a patrolman to take the police cruiser, drive me to a busy street and hail a cab for me. On my way home, the cabbie didn't even speed through yellow lights. He stopped and waited for the red, even as frantic drivers behind him honked and hollered.
I went to the U.S. Embassy in the morning, before I met Colonel Martinez, but that was a bore.
Before I say buenas noches, I'd like to thank Detectives Dennis Laffin and Joe Cavituolo for the NYPD patches. They are a hit among Colombian cops.
Posted by Fernanda Santos at March 8, 2005 5:42 PM