Things are really getting HOT in Mexico. There are no men in the city of Guadalupe Distrito Bravo that want to hold the office of Police Chief. So a 20-Year-Old Criminology student steps up to the plate.
A twenty-year-old woman has been appointed as police chief of one of Mexico’s most violent border towns. Criminology student Marisol Valles Garcia is about to get a quick lesson in the harsh realities of keeping the peace in a state overrun by drug traffickers. She took charge on Monday of security in crime-plagued Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, a town with a population of 10,000 close to the U.S. border. The town’s last mayor, Jesus Manuel Lara Rodriguez, was killed in June after receiving death threats from drug gangs that control the region. Local police officers have also been kidnapped and murdered over the past four years. At least eight people were killed in the town during the last week alone, according to local reports.
Guadalupe is just 50 miles east of Ciudad Juarez, branded one of the deadliest cities in the world. A turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels is raging in the city, where more than 2,000 people have been killed this year. It is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Not surprisingly, there were no other candidates for the police chief’s job. The position comes with just one police car and a force of four officers.
Miss Valles Garcia insists it is not up to her to fight the drug lords, saying that is the responsibility of other law enforcement agencies. She said at her swearing in ceremony that she will focus on crime prevention programmes in schools and fostering better relations between neighbors. She also suggested the idea of setting up a cycling police force.
The state of Chihuahua has borne much of the brunt of the drug wars that have left as many as 28,000 dead in Mexico since 2006. Guadalupe is in the Valle de Juarez, which is said to be controlled by Gabino Salas Valenciano, one of the reputed leaders of the feared Sinaloa drug cartel. The Sinaloa cartel controls distribution in neighboring Sonora state and areas to the east and is warring for control of the border city of Cuidad Juarez. The cartel is also embroiled in the disappearance of American tourist David Hartley.
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