MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican journalist covering one of the country’s most dangerous crimes was killed by gunmen Sunday, and two of his government-assigned bodyguards were injured, authorities said.
Reporter Alejandro Martínez’s news page confirmed his death. The page covered community news and crime in Celaya, the most dangerous city for police officers in Mexico.
The Celaya police department said Martínez was shot to death by assailants traveling in another vehicle. The department said the two bodyguards were being treated for their injuries, but did not say what their condition was.
The journalist received police protection after reporting threats. Prosecutors in the north-central state of Guanajuato said they were investigating the murder.
Martínez covered a fatal car accident on a dangerous stretch of highway just hours before he was attacked. His injured bodyguards took him to a hospital, where he died.
Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any of Mexico’s 32 states, largely due to a years-long turf war between the Jalisco drug cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang. A total of 18 Celaya police officers have been shot dead so far this year in the city of half a million people. Drug gangs are suspected in most of these murders.
Media workers are regularly the target of attacks in Mexicooften in direct reprisal for their work that covers topics such as corruption and notoriously violent country drug dealer.
In April, Roberto Figueroa, who covered local politics and gained a following on social media through satirical videos, was found dead in a car in his hometown of Huitzilac, in Morelos, a state south of Mexico City where drug-fueled violence runs rampant.
Since 2000, 141 Mexican journalists and other media workers have been murdered, at least 61 of them in apparent retaliation for their work, says the Committee to Protect Journalists. All but a few of the murders and kidnappings remain unsolved.
