The small Mexican town of Guadalupe, only two miles from the border with Texas, now has no police force after gunmen kidnapped the last remaining officer, Erika Gándara.

 

Guadalupe, caught in the middle of a drug war between two cartels, had a police force of eight as recently as June 2009, when Gándara joined as a dispatcher. One was shot dead that week. Over the next year, the other seven officers resigned out of fear, as the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels wreaked death and havoc on the area.

 

By June of this year, when gunmen murdered the town’s mayor, Gándara was the last cop standing, and she said publicly she’d rather die than take a bribe. She patrolled the town of 9,000 by herself, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and handgun, until armed men stormed her home on December 23. She’s not been seen or heard from since.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Sole Female Officer in Juárez Valley Town Kidnapped (by Adriana Gómez Licón, El Paso Times)

Strife-Torn Town in Juárez Valley Has Just One Officer Left (by Adriana Gómez Licón, El Paso Times)

In Mexico’s Drug War, She is One Town’s Lone Ranger (Agence France-Presse)