Over 500 female cops risk their lives in Mexico's murder cap
Over 500 female cops risk their lives in Mexico's murder capital
Published December 29, 2010
Ciudad Juarez – More than 500 women risk their lives each day as police officers in this embattled border city, where ruthless drug-trafficking gangs fight for control of a lucrative smuggling route and frequently target and kill cops.
Despite the dangers and due to the large number of male police officers who have left the profession, more and more women are entering the ranks of the different police forces in Ciudad Juarez and other municipalities of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua.
"Paty," mother of two young children and a municipal police officer in Juarez assigned to the Delicias sector, told Efe she likes her job even though police are "in the sights" of the drug mobs.
"I'm a little bit afraid, but I like what I do. I've been patrolling for more than two years, since about the time it started getting bad here, and I'm still not thinking about quitting. My two children tell me every morning to be careful, but they've never been against what I do," said the female officer, who asked that she remain anonymous.
A total of 2,170 police officers - 540 of them women - are spread out over six districts in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3,100 murders have been committed this year; that tally is higher than in 2009, when Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, had 2,754 mostly drug-related murders, or 191 homicides per 100,000 residents.
According to a report released earlier this year by two Mexican non-governmental organizations, that murder rate made Juarez not only Mexico's murder capital but also the world's most violent city.
Police in Juarez have been targeted by the drug cartels since at least as far back as January 2008, when the names of numerous officers appeared on publicly posted death lists, and thus far in 2010 close to 70 Ciudad Juarez municipal police - including some female officers - have been shot dead by hit men in the service of drug-trafficking gangs.
On Dec. 8, an armed commando killed a female officer who was later found to have been three months pregnant. Two other police were killed in the same ambush.
"Paty" told Efe Tuesday that she can relate personally to the slain woman because she was also in uniform during one of her pregnancies.
"Hearing that story really hit me hard because I kept patrolling (the streets) even when I was pregnant," she said.
In another tragic incident, Tania Carranza Gonzalez, a 28-year-old assigned to the Delicias district, was shot and killed on Nov. 23 when she stopped her radio car at a traffic light.
Last Thursday, Erika Gandara, the only female police officer in the Ciudad Juarez suburb of Guadalupe, was kidnapped at her home by a group of armed men. She had been the last remaining police officer in Guadalupe after all of her colleagues quit working in June due to fear of being killed by drug hit men.
But the women interviewed by Efe said the dangers will not drive them from the police force because they have no prospect of finding a well paid job with their education level.
That's the case of one female officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying that she has been a municipal cop for six months and that to protect her life she will steer clear of "certain matters" and "do her job well."
"I think as a police officer you can do your job well without getting into problems or (involved) in certain matters," the woman said without elaborating further.
Another female officer, Marisol Valles, a 20-year-old married criminology student, became police chief of Praxedis G. Guerrero, one of Chihuahua's most crime-ridden municipalities, in October.
She joined four other women who have taken the helm of police departments in several violence-wracked Chihuahua municipalities this year, including Veronica Rios Ontiveros in the town of El Vergel, and Olga Herrera Castillo in Villa Luz.
"Sometimes I'm afraid, but they encourage me and it goes away," Herrera Castillo, a 43-year-old mother of five, says.
That fear resurfaces, however, with news of attacks such as the Nov. 29 slaying of Hermila Garcia, Mexico's first female police chief, who was killed by cartel gunmen in the Chihuahua town of Meoqui, or the 2008 killing of the administrative director of the Ciudad Juarez police force, Silvia Molina.
Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, first gained notoriety in the early 1990s, when young women began to disappear in the area.
More than 500 women have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since 1993, according to the National Human Rights Commission, with the majority of the cases going unsolved.
Most of the recent mayhem in Juarez is attributed to a battle between the Juarez cartel and the rival Sinaloa organization to control the main drug-smuggling route into the United States.
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