Government bids to reset the narrative with a war on gangs

When the time came, the police departed in caravans to gang-infested neighbourhoods throughout the capital city, as part of an effort to combat an apparent rise in extortion.

- Jeff Ernst

As dusk fell, a helicopter hovered menacingly over a dusty football field where several hundred police officers stood in formation, waiting for the clock to strike six – and the imposition of a state of exception partially suspending constitutional guarantees in Honduras.

“I’m nervous,” repeated a young police officer driving a pickup truck crowded with heavily armed special forces officers. “It’s dangerous there.”

His unit was headed to the Hole – a labyrinthine neighbourhood of narrow streets, whose nickname was originally coined because of its location between sharp hillsides, but which has taken on a new meaning as a place where gang members disappear.

The mission in early December was ostensibly to raid a casa loca, an abandoned home used by gang members. But before arriving, the car stopped and the caravan split. A local TV correspondent needed to do a live shot for one of the country’s most-watched news programmes.

As the camera rolled, the police began stopping vehicles passing by in the background, running ID checks and frisking occupants. When more cameras arrived, men were forced to take off their shirts so the police could inspect them for gang tattoos in front of the bright lights.