Women of the Xaltianguis Citizen Police ride in pick-up trucks to a recruitment trip in Tierra Colorado, about an hour inland from Xaltiangus. There they are gathering women from all over the region in order to persuade them to also create their own police squads.
Juanita Mesa holds a rifle at the Citizen Police base in Xaltianguis, Guerrero. “When we became police we promised we would give our lives for our compañeros,” said Mesa. “If we carry [weapons], it’s because we need them and we are going to use them.” But the weapons used by the female Citizen Police are generally unloaded. Mesa herself doesn’t know how to use this rifle, but she likes to hold it when she’s at the police station or out on a patrol. She says her husband, a veterinarian, will teach her how to use it soon.
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The Montaña region of Guerrero, where a collision of poverty, militarization, and drug cultivation has resulted in violence and abuse against local communities for decades. Guerrero is one of Mexico’s poorest states, and it is also the country’s largest producer of illegal drugs, with opium poppies and marijuana cultivated throughout the fertile region. Corrupt military and drug traffickers make a profit from the crops, while the local indigenous population lives in poverty and fear.
The female Citizen Police search a around a neighborhood in Xaltianguis for a local drug dealer in order to bring him into the police base for questioning.
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A sign in the Xaltianguis Citizen Police station for a wanted criminal reads: “Wanted. For attempted murder, kidnapping, child rape, and gang activity. Alias ‘El Takete.’”
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Sarai Bautista Messieno, 18, searches a vehicle at a checkpoint at the entrance to Xaltianguis, set up by the town’s female Citizen Police.
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A Xaltianguis Citizen Police woman’s daughter sits in the front seat of their pick-up truck during a routine patrol of town. It is not rare for the women to bring their children along on police duties. Many of the female Citizen Police’s husbands are also Citizen Police, and with both parents volunteering, the women tend to care for their children “on the job.”
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A Commander of the Xaltianguis Citizen Police force teaches the women how to carry and load rifles and revolvers. “The message is that we wake up to the fact that we have to participate—and the guns are to say don’t attack us,” says Xaltianguis Citizen Police chief Miguel Jimenez. “We aren't inviting women to take up arms; we are inviting them to take back their honor."
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Juanita Mesa speaks to the women of Tierra Colorado about why she joined the Citizen Police during a recruitment trip. “We are united to defend our town. To defend against delinquents, drug traffickers, kidnappers, rapists, abusers—against organized crime," says Mesa. “One of the advantages we have is they can be 10 or 15 well-armed [criminals], but we are thousands, and we are organized—we are like ants, mounds of us will come." Before joining the Citizen Police Mesa was part of a local council that tried to monitor and reform the Citizen Police’s somewhat dubious criminal justice system.
Policewoman Juanita Mesa at home with her daughter. “The government is never going to help,” said Mesa. “And we are the ones most affected. They have protection, bullet-proof cars, high power weaponry, bodyguards—we are the only ones who care about us, and we are the only ones who won't sell each other out.”
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Mesa helps her daughter onto her father-in-law’s horse. She says their main objective as female police is crime prevention, starting at home with their own children and family members, “We would know when we see our son bring something home he can’t afford to buy, that he’s starting to be a delinquent,” she says.
The center of Xaltianguis, Guerrero. The Citizen Police had a battle with a gang of extortionists three months ago and finally ran organized crime out of town. Still, only less than a year ago Xaltianguis was a lawless town, where “people could kill whomever they wanted and murderers walked around freely,” according to Police Chief Miguel Jimenez.
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The female Citizen Police try to calm an angry crowd engaged in a local feud with taxi drivers in a nearby village.
Women of the Xaltianguis Citizen Police leave Tierra Colorado after a recruitment trip.
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Maria Hipolita Roque, a 52-year old Citizen Police woman who is a housewife with seven kids and seven grandchildren.
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The female Citizen Police patrol near Xaltianguis, Guerrero, encounter a roadblock from an angry crowd of a neighboring village.
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Women of the all female Xaltianguis Citizen Police leave the Citizen Police base in Tierra Colorado, Guerrero.
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Citizen Police Commander Selsa Zarcoteles, 43, at home with her son. Zarcoteles works as a butcher. She has seven children and three grandchildren. Zarcoteles grew up an orphan and was raised by her oldest brother. He was kidnapped and murdered in September 2010. In the past two years, her uncle, brother and brother-in-law have all been killed. “I’m not doing this for revenge,” she says. “I’m here because I have my little ones—I lived my life, I want my children to live better than I did. I want them to live a calm life. Everything I do is for my kids. And our town.”
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Selsa Zarcoteles works in the market as a butcher, but sometimes sells meat from her home to friends and neighbors.
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The chief of the Xaltianguis Citizen Police, Miguel Angel Jimenez, questions a mother and daughter accused of theft. Citizen Police women observe for training purposes. “All my life I have worked with women,” said Jimenez. He spent 20 years organizing women to sell cosmetics in the North of Mexico before moving to Xaltianguis, and says, “I have always believed that women organize faster. And when they make a decision, they make it happen.”
Prisoners inside the jail in the Xaltianguis Citizen Police Station.
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Sarai Bautista Messieno at a vehicle check point in Xaltianguis, Mexico.
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