Poly'd duo allegedly lure officer into deathtrap

[G Scalabr]

In a story entitled "The Border Monsters," Time magazine writers Tim Padgett and Elaine Shannon describe yet another failure of polygraph screening.  

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo sent an earnest young police reformer, José (Pepe) Patiño, to help clean up Tijuana's corrupt police force.
...
For his safety, Patiño lived in San Diego. But in April 2000, two Mexican federal police comandantes — who had been polygraphed, vetted and trained by the U.S. to serve in a "clean" new antidrug unit — allegedly lured Patiño and two aides into a trap in Tijuana. Patiño's head was crushed in a pneumatic press, agents say, and the mutilated bodies were found in a ditch the next day. (One of the crooked comandantes has been arrested; the other is still a fugitive.)

In addition to branding some of the most truthful individuals as liars, the polygraph often serves to deflect suspicion away from deceptive individuals who can easily defeat such "tests."  Once wonders what the odds for both of these individuals passing were if the polygraph's community's figures on reliability are to be believed.  If any corners were cut on a traditional vetting techniques because these individuals "passed" their polygraphs, José (Pepe) Patiño's blood may be on someone's hands.

[False +]

The situation described has clear parallels with depictions in the movie Traffic, released some months ago. In the movie, a mexican drug trafficer turned good, hands himself over to US authorities to bring down his drug boss in Mexico.

This drug trafficer is shown being given a polygraph in the movie. After the polygraph, the examiners are shown looking at each other nodding in approval. I found this scene so repulsive and antithetical to reality I almost vomitted in disgust. Had this really happened, this guy would have been interrogated hostilely for hours, despite a "truthful chart". The rest of the movie shows the drug boss being taken down

As for the poor officer who was killed in reality, we all know the polygraph community is going to come up with some explanation. I'm really looking forward to a year from now, when NAS announces (hopefully by then) its results. A major wakeup is coming.