An American Mother Who Led an Anti-Cartel Militia in Mexico Has Been Freed from Jail Nathaniel Janowitz - VICE News
go to original March 18, 2016

Community police force leader Nestora Salgado, waves from inside a bus as she leaves the Tepepan prison after courts threw out charges of homicide and kidnapping in Mexico City, Friday, March 18, 2016. (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press)

Nestora Salgado — an American mother of three who led a militia formed to combat drug cartels and was then charged with kidnapping — was released from jail on Friday after two and a half years behind bars.

Dressed in her community self defense militia uniform, Salgado emerged from the prison smiling, as supporters cheered her on. She was flanked on both sides by family and members of the militia, who were also wearing their uniforms, and was escorted away from the facility.

Salgado gained international notoriety in 2012 when she was visiting the small Mexican town of Olinalá in the mountains of the southern state of Guerrero where she had been raised, and ended up rallying its inhabitants to oust the local narcos.

She became one of the faces of a broader movement of citizen self defense militias that sprung up that same year throughout the state in response to the failure of the authorities to contain the extreme violence of local drug gangs. Some, however, claimed she was taking her new powers too far, and accused her of kidnapping innocent locals. She was arrested by the army in August 2013 and taken to maximum-security jail.

Salgado, her family, and her lawyers, claimed throughout her imprisonment that she was being held unlawfully and was not receiving a fair trial. The movement to free Salgado was aided by an international solidarity campaign.

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