He has sped to a San Ygnacio school after gunfire south of the border hit perilously close to the building, sending students ducking under their desks.

And he’s stood above the Rio Grande and looked across the water, watching members of a drug cartel walk nonchalantly along the Mexican side of the river, machine guns slung over their shoulders.

As a Zapata County sheriff’s deputy the past six years, Mendoza and his fellow state and federal law officers find themselves increasingly playing a deadly game of cat and mouse along the edge of Texas as drug violence grips Mexico’s border towns and spills into the U.S.

Read more: Mexican cartels and ensuing violence leave mark on Texas border town – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16300367#ixzz11x4J51a9