The Tijuana chief of an elite state police unit that searches for U.S. fugitives in Mexico, nicknamed “The Gringo Hunters,” was killed in a shootout Wednesday while trying to arrest a prisoner who escaped from Central California.
Abigail Esparza Reyes, 33, served as the head of the international liaison group in Tijuana for the Baja California State Citizen Security Force, or FESC, for the last eight years. The unit often works closely with counterparts in San Diego law enforcement.
“To the family and loved ones of Officer Abigail, we recognize her bravery and dedication to the service of her state,” Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said in a statement posted on social media. “Abigail’s life will be honored and her death will not go unpunished.”
The team had been looking for Cesar Hernández, 34, a prisoner who escaped from custody in Delano in December after arriving at the Kern County Superior Courthouse, Mexican officials said Thursday.
Hernández was sentenced in 2019 to 80 years to life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder in Los Angeles County, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
He was located in a house in the southeastern Tijuana neighborhood of Barcelona Residencial, and during an attempt to arrest him, Esparza was shot and wounded, officials said. Esparza was rushed to the Red Cross in Tijuana, where she died.
Several law enforcement agencies, including FESC, Tijuana police and the National Guard, were deployed to the area, where the suspect was believed to have barricaded himself inside the house. But he managed to flee. No one else was found in the house, officials said.
Security camera footage obtained by several Tijuana media outlets shows a man, believed to be the suspect, running away wearing only underwear and changing into a yellow worker’s jacket. A multiagency search is underway to find the suspect, Mexican officials said Thursday.
Gen. Laureano Carrillo, director of the State Police, expressed his condolences to Esparza’s loved ones, saying she “will be remembered and honored for her courage, passion and dedication to police work, in which her direct role in the arrest of individuals who at the time were fugitives from justice in the United States and other countries stands out.”
Esparza grew up in Tijuana and had secretly dreamed of becoming a police officer, according to a 2022 profile of the unit in The Washington Post.
