Yet another Mexican police officer has gone missing. Érika Gándara, 28, niece of Mexican Mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, dissappeared just two days after Christmas last December. She had recently been offered the job as a police officer because, "nobody else would take the job". Though she had been warned of the dangers of this position, she seemed excited and confident about her roll in the community. This did not last long, as she was soon taken from her home by a group of armed men in the middle of the night. Her uncle explains that she had only a little experience with security, and practically no actually crime experience. This is a prime example of Mexico's largest downfall in trying to beat the drug cartel; inequipt officers. The New York Times reports, "the lack of adequately trained police officers, a longstanding crisis that the government has sought to address with little resolution, allows criminal groups to have their way." The issue isn't the number of officers, its the quality. They need police members who are trained properly to handle the issues at hand and who will not succumb to bribery. This can be done by offering them stronger protection from the cartel themselves, as many of these officers are fearful for their everyday lives, and like Erika, are the main targets for the cartel. In his Foreign Affairs article "The New Cocaine Cowboys" Robert C. Bonner explains, "It is more important in the longrun for the United States to concentrate its assistance on the development, training, and professionalization of Mexico's law enforcement officers." He later goes on to suggest, "At the federal level, Mexico desperatley needs to create a Mexican equivilant of the FBI, together with a real anticorruption and interal affairs investigative capacity that can gain credibility through publicized prosecutions. At the state level, Mexico needs new police officers who are paid well enough to make them less susceptible to bribery. the best solution may be to abolish the municipal police departements altogether and have reformed state police agencies." It is in this way that other countries like the United States, and Colombia, who have extensive experience with these sorts of problems, can help Mexico. We need to not rely so much on direct miltary support, since according to Bonner, that is not the correct way to deal with the cartel. What we need is training and protection, for the sake of Mexico, for its future and its people.