In a hierarchal institution, two senior classes of police administrators were oddly passed over when Ramírez was named to his post. U.S. embassy officials, Honduran government authorities and prosecutors acknowledge that even in a nation rife with nasty rumors, the allegations whispered against Ramírez are worse than most.

“That’s the first I hear of that,” Ramírez said when asked about his reputation in the department. “If they named us to our posts, it’s because they trust us. There’s a lot of common talk. Show proof.”

The head of the police department’s internal affairs unit said there are at least four cases and multiple boxes of reports against Ramírez, involving allegations such as abuse of authority that have never been probed.

“I was surprised when he was named, because I saw people of higher rank who were passed over and I thought, ‘why weren’t those people named? What’s happening here?'” said internal affairs Commissioner Santos Simeon Flores. “We are going to reactivate those cases. We really shouldn’t have cases up in the air like that.”

He said internal affairs received 580 complaints against police officers in 2009. By November 2011, the year’s tally had ballooned to 1,000. About 28 percent were forwarded to prosecutors but many cases got dropped, either by prosecutors or judges, he said.

EXCERPT from: Miami Herald
‘Graft, greed, mayhem turn Honduras into murder capital of world’.