First Fayetville woman top cop – Guna ancestry

THE FIRST WOMAN to run a police department in the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina,  is of Guna ancestry.

Gina Vaneesa Hawkins Esquivel was born in the city of Columbus, Ohio, but her relatives are from the community of Narganá, in the Guna Yala region.

She  took office after being selected from 30 applicants.

She began her career as a police officer in the city of Atlanta and served as a sergeant, detective, and lieutenant from 1989 until 2006. She was a police captain in Sandy Spring, Marieta, Georgia, from 2006 to 2013.

“When evil and hatred are making their own, the only thing that is capable of changing that hatred is love,” she said in a speech to a large audience and police.

“What better opportunity we have as a Police Department to show the country and the world that we can be warriors and protect and serve our community with the light of love,” said Gina Esquivel  who graduated from the University of Georgia Seuthem University with a  bachelor’s degree and the FBI Academy.

Her family, including her grandmother Aurora Garrido, 98, traveled from Panama to attend the ceremony Miriam Esquivel, her aunt, said that her niece, who is the mother of two girls, whenever she can comes to vacation in Panama and crosses the land where her mother and grandmother were born.

Although she was born in the United States, she has a Panamanian certificate because she is proud of her origin reports El Siglo.

Eugene Hawkins, his father, a native of Sparta, Georgia, met Gina’s mother, Yadira A. Esquivel de Hawkins, while serving in the US Army.

“He met my sister at a basketball game in Amador, and they fell in love. Then he took her  to the United States where Gina was born, “recalls Miriam.

The new police chief, was Deputy Chief of Clayton County, Georgia, from 2013 to 2017.