Praxedis G. Guerrero, Mexico • There's a new police chief in this violent borderland where drug gangs have killed public officials and terrified many citizens into fleeing: a 20-year-old woman who hasn't yet finished her criminology degree.

Marisol Valles Garcia was sworn in Wednesday to bring law and order to a township of about 8,500 that has been transformed from a string of quiet farming communities into a lawless no man's land. Two rival gangs — the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels — have been battling for control of its single highway, a lucrative drug trafficking route along the Texas border.

The tiny but energetic Valles Garcia, whose only police experience was a stint as a police department secretary, says she wants her 12 officers to practice a special brand of community policing. In fact her plan is to hire more women — she currently has three — and assign each to a neighborhood to talk with families, promote civic values and detect potential crimes before they happen.

"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.

She has been assigned two bodyguards but won't carry a gun. She says she will leave most of the decisions about weapons and tactics to Mayor Jose Luis Guerrero.

Local residents say the drug gangs take over at night, riding through the towns in SUVs and pickups, assault rifles and even .50-caliber sniper rifles at the ready. The assistant mayor of nearby El Porvenir and the mayor of Distrito Bravos were killed recently even after they took refuge in nearby Ciudad Juarez.

Local residents like farmer Arturo Gomez are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"This is a town without law," Gomez said. "Let's see what a woman can do ... things can't get any worse." —

Gunbattles stir panic

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico • Mexican soldiers battled gunmen in two cities across the border from Texas on Wednesday, prompting panicked parents to pull children from school and factories to warn workers to stay inside. Assailants in a third city threw a grenade at an army barracks.

The U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo warned American citizens to stay indoors. The statement said there were reports of drug gangs blocking at least one intersection near the consulate in the city across from Laredo, Texas.

The local city government and witnesses reported several more blockades — a new tactic that has emerged in northeastern Mexico, where violence has soared this year amid a split between the Gulf and Zetas drug gangs.

Shootouts also erupted in Reynosa, across from McAllen, causing a huge traffic jam in the highway connecting the city with Monterrey and Matamoros.

The Associated Press