Marisol Valles Garcia
| Marisol Valles García | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1989 (age 27–28) Ciudad Juárez |
| Police career | |
| Current status | Police chief |
| Country | Mexico |
| Years of service | 2010–2011 |
Marisol Valles García (born 1989, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico) is the former police chief of Praxedis G. Guerrero located in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua near the cities of Ciudad Juárez and Guadalupe. She was the only person to apply for this job. In March 2011, she was dismissed from her post after failing to show up for work. Valles and her family fled to the United States where they are currently seeking asylum.
Since Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels in 2006, the country's death toll related to drug crime has been around 30,000. Mayors and police have been specifically targeted; some beheaded, some tortured to death.
In early October 2010, Tancítaro's mayor Gustavo Sánchez was found beaten to death with his hands tied behind his back. Elected in January, he'd stated "The fear is always there, but if you have courage and a desire to make a contribution, that outweighs the fear".
Prior to the war on drugs, rural Praxedis G. Guerrero, Chihuahua was a quiet town. Two rival drug gangs, the Juárez Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, now fight for control of the region's main highway, making Chihuahua one of the most dangerous places in the world. Residents hide in houses from fear of violence and death. In nearby Ciudad Juárez in October 2010, a gang killed over a dozen people, including children, at a birthday party. Several police officers in Ciudad Juárez have been abducted or killed, and Praxedis G. Guerrero's previous chief, Manuel Castro, was tortured and beheaded a year earlier.
With all but three police officers having quit, mayor José Luis Guerrero desperately sought solutions. After a year without a police chief, 20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia, who was a student working on a degree in criminology at the University of Guadalajara, was the only person willing to accept the job. She was sworn in on 18 October 2010. This attracted international attention, and has prompted news media to call her the "bravest woman in Mexico".
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