Marisol Valles Garcia, working as police chief in Praxedis G Guerrero last October. (Reuters)
Marisol Valles Garcia was sworn in as police chief of Praxedis G, Guerro, Mexico in October. She wanted to practice non-violence and community healing in dealing with the deadly drug cartels.
Chron.com reported:
Her predecessor was gunned down in July 2009 and the town had been unable to find a replacement for more than a year.
Of course, Garcia admits, there is a considerable amount of fear that has come with her new title, but the young, energetic and possibly naive woman believes her special brand of community policing which arms itself with principles and values and focuses on prevention will slowly heal the community from the inside out.
“My people are out there going door to door, looking for criminals, and (in homes) where there are none, trying to teach values to the families,” she said in her first official appearance on Wednesday. “The project is … simple, based on values, principles and crime prevention in contacts house-by-house.”
Garcia, who has two bodyguards, will not carry any weapons and wants to hire more women in addition to the three already on her staff of 13 officers. She also wants these officers to be unarmed in order to assume a non-violent role.
Although Garcia claims she welcomed her new role, there are many people who are not as enthused about having a woman – especially a non-violent one – at the helm of the war on drugs.
Miguel Sarre, a professor who specializes in Mexican law enforcement at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico hopes her decision “is not a reckless act on her part…a municipal police force cannot protect itself against such powerful forces.”
It looks like those non-violent techniques did not work out so well for Marisol.
She fled to the US earlier this month and is seeking asylum. She is being held in a detention centre for migrants in El Paso, just across the Rio Bravo from Ciudad Juárez.
Apparently those non-violent techniques did not work so well with the drug cartels, huh?
What a complete shock.
Hat Tip Anthony
