So much for the macho men, the women in Mexico are showing courage.

God bless this brave woman and condem the cowards that took her life.


Female police chief killed in Mexico

By the CNN Wire Staff
November 30, 2010 -- Updated 1440 GMT (2240 HKT)

One of a small number of women who have filled a void by becoming police chiefs in violence-torn Mexico was gunned down Monday, authorities said.

Hermila Garcia, 38, became the top cop in the town of Meoqui just two months ago.

Gunmen attacked her as she drove to work by herself, authorities said.

Garcia was one of a handful of women who have taken leadership roles in police departments in cities and towns where men have stayed away because of fear.

One of the most high-profile women to take such an assignment is 20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia, a student who became police chief of Praxedis G. Guerrero, also in the state of Chihuahua.

Hermila Garcia was a lawyer by profession and was single with no children.

Violence in Chihuahua is due to struggles between rival drug cartels over lucrative smuggling routes, as well as police operations against the cartels.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/ameri ... id=dlvr.it


Two more women join Mexico's police chiefs
'Sometimes I am afraid, but people encourage me and I lose my fear,' says one
Below:

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen have killed so many police and local officials in some areas of Mexico bordering Texas that few are willing to take the posts anymore — leading several women to occupy roles traditionally dominated by men.

..In two northern hamlets, Villa Luz and El Vergel, women were elected as community security leaders this week after men declined to run out of fear.

Both towns are near the southern edge of Ciudad Juarez, where drug violence has claimed over 4,000 lives in the last two years, giving the city one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Olga Herrera Castillo, the new head of security for Villa Luz and a 43-year-old mother of five, said Wednesday that "sometimes I am afraid, but people encourage me and I lose my fear."

Her job will largely consist of filing reports after crimes occur, because Samalayuca has only 2,500 inhabitants, one patrol vehicle and a handful of police officers — none of them permanently assigned to the hamlet.

Veronica Rios Ontiveros will be in charge of the police department in Villa Luz.

Last month, 20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia was sworn in as police chief of Praxedis G. Guerrero, east of Ciudad Juarez, despite not having finished her criminology degree.
...The Juarez region has been sucked into the spiraling violence, rapidly becoming a no man's land where people are abandoning towns despite an army presence.

Drug violence has killed almost 7,000 people in and around Ciudad Juarez since early 2008, while more than 31,000 people have died across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on drug cartels in December 2006.

Bloodshed has exploded around Ciudad Juarez as local cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes fights off an offensive by Mexico's No. 1 fugitive drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Calderon has pledged to reform Mexico's police and provide better salaries that are often as low as $300 a month. He wants Congress to approve a plan to put municipal police control in the hands of the country's 32 state governments.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40155084/40401066