A Mexican border town ravaged by the drug war has a new police chief – a 20-year-old woman who was the only person brave enough to take the job.
Marisol Valles Garcia, who is studying for a criminology degree, was sworn in Wednesday as the top cop in Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a township of 8,500.
“She was the only person to accept the position,” an official at the mayor’s office said.
Two drug gangs, the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels, have been battling for control of the town’s single highway. Police officers and a former mayor have been killed.
Valles, who has a baby son, says that intimidate her.
“We’re all afraid in Mexico now. We can’t let fear beat us,” she said after being sworn in.
She is in charge of 12 police officers and wants them to go door to door, looking for the criminal element – which murdered eight people just last week.
Valles will be confronting narco-gangsters who have terrorized much of the country with their depraved acts of violence.
In the latest outrage, police found a woman’s head in a bag next to a body left on the street in Ciudad Juarez, officials said Wednesday.
Three decapitated bodies were hung by their feet off bridges in Tijuana last week.
The cartels’ brutality has some fearing for Valles.
“Let’s hope it is not a reckless act on her part,” said Miguel Sarre, a Mexican professor who specializes in law enforcement.
