MEXICALI – Mexican police Officer José Luis Montoya sometimes imagines how the drug traffickers could kill him. "I have practically seen my own death in my dreams. It will be when I am getting in or out of the car, and it will be right here in the head," he said, aiming an imaginary pistol at himself while sitting at his dinner table one afternoon.

Montoya believed he did the right thing when he refused bribes and went after drug gangs. But now he is a hunted man for breaking the unspoken code of collusion that exists between certain Mexican law enforcement officials and organized crime.

A funeral arrangement was sent to his home. Someone clambered on his roof and set it on fire. He heard of a $25,000 payment for whomever kills him. And he worries that a drug trafficker he sent to prison may soon be free.

From the modest home he shares with his wife and infant son, he watches the street warily and considers building a wall and setting up video cameras. He takes an assault rifle to and from work, and when he can't sleep, he grips it tightly while checking the dark corners of his house.

The demand for drugs in the United States is ripping apart Mexican communities. Women recruited from poor villages smuggle drug loads for quick cash, hundreds of people die annually in organized crime killings, and police motivated by greed or fear cut deals with powerful drug cartels.

In recent years, Mexican authorities have arrested a record number of cartel members, and police are receiving better training, equipment and salaries. But drug traffickers continue to take advantage of corruption and people who can't or won't stand up to them. "He's fighting against a system, and for that he could be considered a fool, but what he is doing is very courageous," said Mariano Cortez, who was Montoya's police academy instructor.

The region's powerful Arellano Félix drug cartel established much of that system, but smaller drug-trafficking groups, such as the one Montoya stood up to, use a similar mix of threats and temptations to win over Mexican officers. The trouble started for Montoya when he was assigned to supervise a neighborhood where a suspected drug trafficker, Jazan Manuel Torres Garcia, held sway. Montoya, 31, could have looked the other way or asked to be transferred to avoid problems. He could have even pocketed the bribe money, as he knew some of his co-workers did. But Montoya, who bears a tattoo of Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara on his left arm, saw one other option. To him, it was the only one.

Mexican police officers rarely talk publicly about the secrets of their agencies, but Montoya isn't used to keeping quiet. He grew up in a middle-class Mexicali household where his father, an engineer, expected him to follow in his footsteps. Instead, Montoya spent his time reading works by philosophers and revolutionaries such as Simon Bolivar and Karl Marx and dreaming up utopian societies with his friends. Montoya thought he might become a philosopher or priest, but he figured he needed to experience life first.

He traveled through Mexico as a distributor for kitchen products but returned to Mexicali. While working in an auto parts store in 1996, Montoya heard a radio announcement for city police recruits. At 22, Montoya had found his calling. His instructor, Cortez, said young officers often start out with idealistic notions, but that many learn to accept and even contribute to the failings of their own agencies.

"The system is very complicated, and it requires a full-scale confrontation of the social problems, legal matters and politics," he said. Montoya was undeterred: "Now I am part of the government, and I will try to change things from within," he told himself. That proved to be harder than he thought. In 1997, a year after becoming a police officer, he received his first death threat. Montoya said it came after he organized a raid on a clandestine casino. He had learned about the casino, operated by some Chinese residents, through a news article. Montoya thought his supervisor would be proud of his initiative. Instead, the supervisor reminded him that the Chinese community invested a lot of money in Mexicali.

Montoya said he saw some positive changes in the police force. One chief ordered officers not to solicit bribes, as had been commonly done, but then the same boss was later convicted of working with the Arellanos. In 1998, after Montoya said another officer falsely accused him of stealing drugs, he left the force disillusioned. The break didn't last long. He started working as a physical trainer for members of a federal drug investigations group, which then hired him on a freelance basis to assist with investigations.

When the office was empty, he would leaf through stacks of documents being compiled on groups such as the Arellanos. Despite all the information, he knew that few members would be captured – at least back then. The cartel had bought off too many officials. He resigned. Despite his frustrations, the pull of police work remained inescapable. Montoya returned to the Mexicali city force in 2001, and he eagerly signed up for police courses offered by U.S. agencies. He was promoted to supervisor of Colonia Baja California in 2003.

Montoya knew the neighborhood because he had patrolled it years earlier and had grown up in a house just a few blocks away. People who lived there crossed the border – illegally and legally – to work in neighboring Calexico, Montoya said. Some got involved in gangs and drugs in the United States and became drug dealers back in Mexico. The neighborhood is thick with connections to the drug trade, he said. Families are linked to traffickers through marriage, and local businesses fix up autos for dealers and sell them cell phones. When he was a patrol officer, Montoya said, he didn't think he had the power to make much of a difference. But now, as a supervisor, he believed he could.

"I talked to the commander and told him the selling of drugs in this neighborhood was very evident and that they had perfected the system of sales – of the payoffs to all levels of police – and I knew what I was facing," he said. "I said, 'Let's attack it directly.'" Technically, it wasn't Montoya's job to be going after the drug traffickers. Drug investigations are pursued by the Federal Attorney General's Office. But Montoya believed that the federal agents and the state police, who investigate homicides and assaults, weren't doing enough.Montoya said informants, including a childhood friend, helped identify dealers and houses where drugs were kept. Montoya and his group started rounding up drug-dealing suspects for petty violations. One name kept popping up: Jazan Manuel Torres Garcia.

"I knew he was selling drugs. Everyone who was detained identified him, or we would find his phone number on the cell phones," Montoya said. He also suspected that police were working with Torres. He filed reports on one of his own officers and a state agent for allegedly associating with criminals in the neighborhood, according to police documents. Because of his actions, Montoya's supervisor warned him to watch out for police who might try to plant drugs on him. As a precaution, Montoya got permission to carry an assault rifle.

On July 26, 2003, according to court records of Montoya's version of events, Torres came to Montoya's house with an offer that would be difficult for many to refuse: $2,000 a week to leave his drug-trafficking group alone. A Mexicali city cop typically earns $700 a month. Montoya was better off than most cops. At the time, he was earning about $1,400 a month as a supervisor and police academy instructor. His wife, Dulce, also a police officer, earned an additional $700 a month. The couple lived in Montoya's inherited childhood home.

The offer, detailed in Montoya's court testimony, certainly would have made life easier. It had taken Montoya a year to save $2,000 for a 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta that had been salvaged in Mexico after being wrecked in the United States. Torres said he was working for a Colombian who would have Montoya removed if he didn't cooperate, according to Montoya's court testimony. "The man doesn't want to have problems, and that's why I come here to talk to you so that you calm down," Torres told Montoya, according to the officer's testimony. Torres also reminded Montoya that "I have lots of friends in your agency. See how they have given me your address and phone number."

On July 28, 2003, Torres was arrested and charged with possessing 22 packets of crystal methamphetamine, according to a police report and court records. Torres, who was initially stopped for speeding, said later in federal court that Montoya planted the drugs on him. The day Torres was arrested, several men climbed onto Montoya's roof and poured gasoline on it before lighting a match. The fire was extinguished, and no one was injured. A police patrol watched his house that night. Early the next morning, he was jolted from sleep by a loud knocking at his door. It was one of his supervisors with a worried look on his face. Someone had delivered a floral funeral arrangement to the house with Montoya's name on it. Three days later, federal authorities released Torres on bond. Montoya's bosses suggested transferring him to a different beat, but Montoya refused. "If they take me out, they win," he said.

As his apprehension grows, Montoya is turning inward, spending more time at home and with people he trusts. He would like to continue teaching at the police academy but thinks the agency is keeping him away from classrooms because they don't want him to encourage new officers to take similar risks. His baby boy, 7-month-old José Luis, has become his biggest project. "He's a seed so that I can transmit to him and for him to transmit to others to make things better," he said.

Montoya sometimes wonders why he has never received any of the awards that are doled out to members of the police force for good service. the awards that are doled out to members of the police force for good service.
Attorney Rosendo Cervantes, who is part of a state public security committee composed of citizens and officials, would like to see him honored but said the problem is that Montoya's personnel file includes complaints of abuse of authority and insubordination. Montoya said they are retaliations, and he jokes morbidly that his only recognition will be when his name is added to the monument for officers killed in the line of duty. But childhood friend Armando Gutierrez, now a film professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California in Mexicali, said Montoya has become a hero to a public weary of corruption and crime. "If something happens to him, then all fingers will point to the government, and the image the people hold of the police of being corrupt and unprofessional will be sustained," he said. Javier Salas Espinoza, who oversees the administrative and operational branches of Mexicali's police force, did not return repeated phone messages requesting an interview.