The Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels have been battling for control of the Juarez Valley,causing many residents to retreat across the border to Texas or to other Mexican cities. The drug gangs are trying to control the valley’s only highway, a profitable drug trafficking route along the Texas border. Since June, Gándara had been the lone police officer in the municipality of 9,000 people. Armed with a revolver and rifle, Gandara patrolled in a remote and lawless area where residents hide in their homes after the sun down.
On December 23, disappeared and prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state said today they have started a search for her. While local media have reported Gandara was kidnapped, prosecutors’ spokesman Arturo Sandoval said her family has not filed a kidnap complaint. Sandoval said a search was started Monday as a missing person case.The same day Gandara disappeared, a fire was set to the home of a Guadalupe town council woman,Guadalupe is about two miles from Tornillo,Texas.
Most police officers are outgunned by the drug cartels, they have abandoned their job and officials say few people are willing to take their place. Gandara held out despite resignations and desertions that left her as the only officer in the Juarez Valley town, which was served by eight police a year ago. The hardship of law enforcement has progressively fallen on a few women. In the neighboring town of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a twenty year old woman was sworn in as police chief this past October. The man who once held that office had been shot down in July 2009 and the town had been unable to find a replacement for more than a year.
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