Mexican Female Police Chief Who Promoted Non-Violence & Community Healing Flees to US
Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, March 14, 2011, 6:34 AM
Marisol Valles Garcia, working as police chief in Praxedis G Guerrero last October. (Reuters)
Marisol Valles Garcia was sworn in as police chief of Praxedis G, Guerro, Mexico in October. She wanted to practice non-violence and community healing in dealing with the deadly drug cartels.
Chron.com reported:
Her predecessor was gunned down in July 2009 and the town had been unable to find a replacement for more than a year.
Of course, Garcia admits, there is a considerable amount of fear that has come with her new title, but the young, energetic and possibly naive woman believes her special brand of community policing which arms itself with principles and values and focuses on prevention will slowly heal the community from the inside out.
“My people are out there going door to door, looking for criminals, and (in homes) where there are none, trying to teach values to the families,” she said in her first official appearance on Wednesday. “The project is … simple, based on values, principles and crime prevention in contacts house-by-house.”
Garcia, who has two bodyguards, will not carry any weapons and wants to hire more women in addition to the three already on her staff of 13 officers. She also wants these officers to be unarmed in order to assume a non-violent role.
Although Garcia claims she welcomed her new role, there are many people who are not as enthused about having a woman – especially a non-violent one – at the helm of the war on drugs.
Miguel Sarre, a professor who specializes in Mexican law enforcement at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico hopes her decision “is not a reckless act on her part…a municipal police force cannot protect itself against such powerful forces.”
It looks like those non-violent techniques did not work out so well for Marisol.
She fled to the US earlier this month and is seeking asylum. She is being held in a detention centre for migrants in El Paso, just across the Rio Bravo from Ciudad Juárez.
Apparently those non-violent techniques did not work so well with the drug cartels, huh?
What a complete shock.
Hat Tip Anthony
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Published February 22, 2012 at 4:19 pm - 32 Comments
lyle commented:
She’s just a kid. She thought the left-wing rubbish she learned in college could be applied to the real world. She should be relieved that she is still alive.
Millitant Conservative commented:
Yup, one of Rush’s rules fit here.
The world is controled by the agressive use of force.
You can ask the rapist to stop, or you can shoot him.
The latter works every time.
powder is dry
NeoKong commented:
Why does she have to come here….?
Is Mexico not big enough for her to live somewhere else?
Something seems a little fishy about this story.
jimbo commented:
Her approach was tried by Barry Soetoro and it failed. It’s a good thing we didn’t try asking the Nazis and Japanese nicely to stop attacking us in the 1940s.
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Andreas K. commented:
Promoting peace and non-violence is surely going to stop a criminal armed with an assault rifle.
Not.
Possibly naive? How’s about “utterly stupid”?
James K. Polk commented:
I’m sorry. We should’a annexed the whole damn thing and been done with it.
Not that there wouldn’t have been other problems, but there wouldn’t have been any of this lawless crap.
(And don’t get me started on Oregon…)
AC commented:
I love the cute red pencil holder on her desk in the picture with the flower sticking out, as if to say, “I’d like to build a world a home and furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves…”
Liberal crime prevention policy, meet reality.
The All Real Numbers Symbol commented:
Using non-violence to reach the drug cartels didn’t work? I’m SHOCKED I tell you, just SHOCKED.
Not.
I’m with NeoCong. Don’t let her into America. Let her go live somewhere else.
Simon commented:
Neokong, admittedly anything could be a ploy these days but they probably told her to get out of Mexico OR ELSE.
Mope commented:
Well, sending unarmed ICE agents to Mexico proves non-violence works.
donh commented:
OH…but how I love her ROSE…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdL8XuugcOM
Kip commented:
She’s a brave soul who stepped up to fill a role in her community that no one else had the guts to do. Sadly, she was tremendously naive and unprepared. I could never find it in my heart to ridicule her though. I’m glad she survived the experience and wish her well.
AC commented:
Aristotle said that we should not confuse bravery and recklessness. Both are about facing up to fears, but recklessness is about facing up to fears stupidly. Anyone who thinks that non-violent healing crime prevention techniques will work on drug cartels is reckless, not brave. She put her fellow female officers in danger every time they went out unarmed at her behest. Yes she’s young, but 20 is old enough to know the difference between violent drug lords and someone who just needs a hug. I assume she’s learned her lesson.
archer52 commented:
That is one stupid girl. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But it does explain why she was the only person who would take the job- she’s too stupid to know better. I wonder just how free to operate the cartels were doing her time as chief, because I know for sure not one police officer in that town would do one thing to stop them with her as a leader.
Jeezz… Will somebody tell her that sticking a knife is an electrical wall plug is also a bad idea!
Hurts to even deal with people like this.
ebayer commented:
The more things change,the more things stay the same.
Putting cute little girlie flowers in your fuzzy pencil holder won’t soften up hardened criminals.
Stuart commented:
Why does this story remind me of “Bambi vs. Godzilla?
Towering Barbarian commented:
I’m with Kip on this one. And please note, she must have been doing *something* right or else the drug cartels would have encouraged her to remain at the post while they continued to run wild rather than feel the need to run her out of Mexico.
AC commented:
This is what she was doing “right”:
“Las mujeres nunca van a llevar armas? (They are never going to carry weapons?)” we asked Marisol. “No. No,” she replied. “They’re never going to carry weapons.” In fact, the chief’s bullet proof vest, gun and baton are locked up. Her handcuffs hang from a high school cheering trophy but just above her desk, the Virgin of Guadalupe. The new chief’s approach instead is to hire only females, like 22-year-old Lydia, who is afraid to show her face. She’s doesn’t carry a gun, and goes door to door with other female officers, sharing a message of peace. “What is it you’re trying to do here?” we asked her. “Instead of being in the house, you can go out and make a sport, or do something and go to the park, without being afraid,” said Lydia. “You have drug cartels that are roaming around and controlling this town,” Art told her. “I’m not going to say anything about that,” she said. “You don’t want to talk about that?” we asked. “No, I don’t want to talk about that,” said Lydia. Under orders from the police chief, officers don’t even acknowledge that there is a cartel problem. Just listen to one new police hire, also refusing to be on camera. “Are you scared in this little office?” we asked. “No,” she replied. “I mean there are drug cartels roaming the street and killing people,” we said. “I don’t know that,” she answered. “No. You don’t like to talk about the drug cartels do you?” we asked. “I don’t know. I’m just doing my work and that’s all,” she replied. “It looks like you have a few bullet holes here. Look at this. One, two, three, four, and then you have five, six. Doesn’t that make you nervous?” “No,” she replied. “It doesn’t? You don’t know anything about this do you?” we asked. “No,” she replied. This is just one town of many shot up by drug thugs. Just down the street, in a neighboring town, cartels blasted a brand new police station. Every officer quit the force the next day. The clear message from the cartel — ‘Leave us alone.’ “As a police officer, you’re not going to try and investigate the drug cartels are you?” we asked. “I don’t know,” replied the officer. “You don’t know if they exist?” we asked. “I don’t know nothing about that,” said the officer. This cartel violence is everywhere around this town, but in Marisol’s world, it doesn’t exist. “You’re not going to investigate them?” we asked. “No,” she replied. (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=7769520)
That’s the difference between bravery and reckless stupidity.
Towering Barbarian commented:
AC of #19,
More to it than that or else the cartels were idiots for running off a perfectly good stooge. Mind you, I suppose we shouldn’t rule out the cartels being idiots.
Mike K. commented:
You people are all idiots. At the very beginning of her tenure, she announced that she would concentrate on community-building and leave the actual drug war to the state and federal police who actually do use guns quite often. After all, she only had 9 patrol officers under her command. It’s a terrible shame that the US-financed narco-cartels could not see that she was harmless to them and that all she wanted to do was to make life better for the ordinary people in her little town. If the US government is actually serious about this war on drugs, they should just send the Marines into Ciudad Juarez and deal with it head on. This current policy of “law enforcement” is just one big fustercluck that is ruining the life of everybody that lives within 200 miles of the US-Mexico border.
AC commented:
um, it’s a shame that the cartels couldn’t see that all she wanted to do was make life better? lol – what a “shame” those murderous thugs couldn’t see that!
What the cartels saw was obvious: a police chief unwilling to even let her officers carry guns. They therefore reacted as any criminal would in that situation – they used theirs.
Mike K. commented:
Well, it is a shame. You can’t argue that.
dunce commented:
Another liberal mugged by reality or a clever way to get legal residency expedited. Either we get a conservative or another liberal working the system. If you lived in mexico, is there anything that you would not do to get out?
Warthog commented:
@21
You people are all idiots. At the very beginning of her tenure, she announced that she would concentrate on community-building and leave the actual drug war to the state and federal police who actually do use guns quite often.
So, how’d that Hope n’ Change work out for her?
Epic fail you say?
An idealistic approach crashes and burns when confronted by the violent reality, you say?
Ah, but we are the idiots. I see.
(Note that the SIN Mike K. commits here when liberals argue, is “Name-call” …)
Buffalobob commented:
One positive outcome of her pacifists policies is she gets a free pass into the US.
USMC Thomas commented:
Portland, here she comes, perfect fit! Tax paying property owners in Oregon must be fools, wish Texas could send all our illegal leech mooching welfare free loaders there.
Mike K. commented:
I called you all idiots because you are totally missing the point of what she was trying to do, and it should have been very obvious to you. She wasn’t even trying to enforce the law, she was trying to use the office of police chief to reach out to her community and bring them just a little bit of relief in a hopeless situation. Since the army, federal and state police are already fighting the narcos with actual firepower, and since the local police force was pretty much completely hollowed out, she decided to step into a vacant office and attempt to do the best that she could to help out her neighbours. She could have strutted around with a gun on her hip and she would have got killed by the end of her first week at work, but instead she decided to focus her attention on community buildng. What else could she do? If drug dealers came to your town and killed the police chief and the mayor, what would you do? Would you get your gay little semi-auto hunting rifle and make a stand and get your head shot off in the street, or would you hide in your basement peeing in your pretty little panties, or would you do your best to comfort your family and make the best of a terrible situation? I think what she tried to do was very intelligent and brave, plus I think she is really cute and it totally sucks she has a kid otherwise I would drive right down to El Paso and marry her.
chicago commented:
you all don’t realize that she and her family might have planned this all along. she has relatives in new york and is now seeking asylum. what are the chances that she took the job so that she can ask for asylum in the US?
AC commented:
Mike K wrote: “I called you all idiots because you are totally missing the point of what she was trying to do, and it should have been very obvious to you. She wasn’t even trying to enforce the law, she was trying to use the office of police chief to reach out to her community and bring them just a little bit of relief in a hopeless situation.”
What you’re not getting is that this wasn’t about leaving law enforcement to federal and state police while trying to accomplish something else. This was about a certain *philosophy* of crime prevention that is very prevalent among criminology students like her, and how it failed miserably in the face of reality. Any of us could have told you from the start that what she wanted to do was going to be an epic fail. Bravery is not facing your fears in a deluded manner. Leonidas and his Spartans weren’t at all deluded about the fact that they were going to die at Thermopylae. But Marisol was completely deluded – she actually thought that her nonviolent healing philosophy would work in the face of drug cartels. That’s typical liberal pie-in-the-sky delusion, not bravery. That’s why we mocked your defense of her – because it was so incredibly deserving of mockery.
Mike K. commented:
Nah, she is very brave. In the same situation, a guy like you would just pee in his tighty-whiteys and run down to the basement and hide behind the furnace, waiting for the narcos to move on to the next town. You may be good at launching comments from the comfort of your own easy chair behind a glowing screen, but she actually went out into the streets and tried to make a difference, completely unarmed. I agree it was a futile quest, and she may not have realized that when she started out, but her mission was almost saintly in it’s doomed valor. Definitely poetic and far more deserving of note than most things most people have done with their lives in the last year or so.
AC commented:
um, that’s exactly what she just did – run and hide. Normally I wouldn’t blame someone for doing that in the face of drug cartels, but when someone consciously takes on the role of police chief and then literally runs away, that’s not the same as “doomed valor.” Thermopolae was doomed valor. That’s because they went in knowing exactly what they’d have to do, and knowing they’d die. Marisol went in completely deluded about what had to be done. If this were just about nonviolence in the face of drug cartels, then you’d be right. But that’s not all what Marisol had in mind. What she had in mind was holistic/community/healing/love-conquers-all will beat guns and bullets. That’s not bravery – it’s childishness. And when faced with reality, what do children do? They run.
Art commented:
@KIP grow a sack
Yayster commented:
I support her plea for asylum, as the situation of her town is the direct result of America’s War on Drugs.
AC commented:
Saying that the actions of drug cartels are America’s fault is like saying that the Opium Wars were China’s fault.
Yayster commented:
@AC: Funny, but I would say exactly that.
“British and American merchants brought opium from Bengal to the coast of China, where they sold it to Chinese smugglers who distributed the drug in defiance of Chinese laws. Aware both of the drain of silver and growing numbers of addicts, the Dao Guang Emperor demanded action. Officials at the court who advocated legalization of the trade in order to tax it were defeated by those who advocated suppression. In 1838, the Emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou where he quickly arrested Chinese dealers and summarily demanded that foreign firms turn over their stocks. When they refused, Lin stopped trade altogether and placed the foreign residents under virtual siege, eventually forcing the merchants to surrender their opium to be destroyed. In response, the British government sent expeditionary forces from India which ravaged the Chinese coast and dictated the terms of settlement. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
They — the Chinese — should have legalized and taxed.