Mexico City Safety (for Foundry Workshop students & Staff)

A few years ago the “secuestro express” (express kidnaping) was all the rage, basically cab drivers would allow a couple of thugs in his cab, they would drive around the city holding you at gunpoint while they visited ATMs and drained as much cash as possible from your accounts. After a couple of hours you would be dumped in an unknown neighborhood without shoes or sometimes in you underware.

One would hear about these cases often, however I haven't heard of this happening for a couple of years now to anyone I know, and it seems to me that the city is much safer than it was a few years ago.

It has been 7 years since I moved back to the city and fortunately nothing has happened to me (can’t say the same about my 13 years in NY). I am careful as one has to be but overall the same precautions you would take in your own city you should take here;

do not ware eye-catching watches and jewelry
travel with only the equipment you need to shoot for that moment (no laptops, extra lenses, bodies) if you plan to do some street studio set-up thats fine just make sure you have a couple or at least one person helping you.
Don’t stay in the same spot for too long, many thieves are not expecting you in their neighborhood, don’t give them time to plan an attack, just shoot and keep moving.
Hailing street cabs seems to be fine nowadays, I and my wife do it all the time although be careful in areas with expensive shops, hotels and many tourists, the few secuestro express victims tend to be picked up in these areas. If you need to get a cab from one of these places just walk a few blocks and then hail one.
Subway is fine just pack your shit well and keep your arms over them, if you want to shoot, be discreet and take your camera out in short spurts.
In dangerous areas work in pairs if possible, talk to people, most are very friendly.
Go to places like Tepito as most outsiders would, as a consumer, keep your gear in a bag which is discreet and get a feel for the place, you will know when it feels safe to pull out your camera.
If you want to play it totally safe transport wise you can ask locals where the closest “sitio” is these are radio cabs, you can also call them. You could become friends with a cabie and hire him as a fixer/driver, this tends to work out well often and is no too expensive.

Overall rarely have I been in a situation where I feel too uncomfortable to take my camera out in Mexico City, most sticky situations can be resolved by smiling and being friendly, apologizing in some cases and walking away. Aggressive confrontation “its my right to be shooting here!” is not a good idea.

Police come in many shapes and forms, local street police are relatively harmless, if they stop you from shooting you can often talk to them, and they will let you keep shooting. Federales, usually in plain clothes aren’t to be messed with, they will rarely intervene with photographers or pedestrians as they have bigger fish to fry and bigger bribes to fish. Most cops are looking for their palms to be greased “algo para el refresco” (just something for a soda) is a favorite saying although they could bye a case for the typical bribe (50-200 pesos) for most traffic violations. Try to resolve things amicably, if you are in big trouble try and resolve it as soon as possible before they take you down-town or call the “Capitan” The heavily armed PFP are also looking for bigger fish to fry and shouldn’t be a problem. Once again the police harassment levels have decreased significantly over the years, recently I have had no problems beyond debating whether I can shoot where I am or not.

Most of this is common sense, that is really all you need. If anyone wants to add to this; Keith, Adriana, Trevor, Bene etc please do, if you have specific worries Ill try and answer them.

Good luck and be safe.

by adam wiseman at Thu Apr 24 17:44:36 UTC 2008 (ed. Apr 29 2008) Mexico DF, Mexico | Bookmark this | Digg this |