Pubdate: Thu, 02 Dec 2010
Source: Evening Standard (London, UK)
Copyright: 2010 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/914
Author: Rashid Razaq

MEXICAN POLICE CHIEF WHO TOOK THE JOB MEN DIDN'T WANT IS SHOT DEAD

A Mexican Woman Police Chief Who Vowed To Take On Drug Cartels Has Been 
Shot Dead After Only Two Months In The Job.

Hermila Garcia, 36, was killed by several gunmen as she drove to work in 
the town of Meoqui, outside Chihuahua city in the north of the country.

Ms Garcia, who did not carry weapons or have bodyguards, was one of a small 
but increasing number of women to take on top police jobs because men have 
been too afraid of reprisals by criminal gangs.

"La Jefa" - the chief - as she was known, was fond of saying: "If you don't 
owe anything, you don't fear anything", when asked why she had no security.

A lawyer by profession and unmarried, Ms Garcia was commended for her 
bravery as she pledged to tackle the drug wars that have claimed almost 
30,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and 
deployed 45,000 soldiers to fight the cartels.

Her murder has been interpreted as a warning to other women such as 
20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia, a student who became the police chief of 
Praxedis, in the Juaraez valley in the same state.

Yesterday, gunmen ambushed the police chief of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua 
state's largest city, which is separated from El Paso in Texas by the Rio 
Grande. It has been reduced to a state of near-anarchy by cartels battling 
for control of the drugs trade. Alvaro Gilberto Torres Ramirez, 41, was 
killed in his car.

About 7,200 people have died in drug violence since January 2008 in 
Chihuahua as Mexico's most notorious trafficker Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman 
made a push to control the city and its lucrative smuggling routes.

Police captured another gang leader last weekend who they said has 
confessed to ordering most of the recent killings in Ciudad Juarez. Arturo 
Gallegos Castrellon is alleged to be the leader of the Aztecas gang, whose 
members work as hired killers for the Juarez drug cartel.

Gallegos had ordered 80 per cent of the murders in Juarez over the past 15 
months.

"He is in charge of the whole organization of Los Aztecas in Ciudad 
Juarez," said Luis Cardenas Palomino, the local police chief. "All the 
instructions for the murders committed in Ciudad Juarez pass through him."

Despite the arrest of thousands of gang members in Chihuahua, the crackdown 
on cartels has provoked a wave of violent crime, as jobless young men fight 
over kidnappings, drugs, extortion rackets and prostitution. 
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