Ex-policewoman in Mexico reaches goal in Border Patrol

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press

for Blanca Angelica Parra, a police officer in Ciudad Juarez until the summer of 1995.

"In Juarez when you arrested someone they would threaten you, they were going to kill you and your family," Parra said of life as a police officer in the hardscrabble city across the Rio Grande from El Paso. "But normally that didn't happen."

Parra believed the violence between drug cartels and police would only worsen, so she quit her job and moved with her daughter to the United States.

She was right. In the intervening 13 years, police have become routine targets of drug traffickers and now Parra's back in a position to help them as a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

"I always wanted to be a law enforcement officer," Parra said. "When I came over here, I said 'one day I'm going to be a Border Patrol agent.'"

From the relative safety of the northern side of the border, Parra has heard of numerous police officers, include several former colleagues, being gunned down. Most recently, the No. 2 cop in the sprawling city was killed in a hail of bullets sprayed at his car outside his house.

"I'm glad that I'm here, in the Border Patrol," Parra said.