Mexican Journalist Killed While Under Police Protection: Authorities

Local officials stated that on Sunday, a Mexican crime reporter who was under police protection following an attempted murder was shot and killed.

Following a reporting assignment, Alejandro Martinez Noguez, the owner of a well-known Facebook news outlet, was slain in the central state of Guanajuato while driving with his bodyguards, according to the Celaya security department.

The secretariat released a statement saying, “Civilian attackers in a pickup truck opened fire with long guns at a car assigned to the reporter and his team of bodyguards by the city government.”

According to police sources who spoke to AFP, Martinez’s companions, the highway police, returned fire, but the reporter, who was seated in the back seat, was hit in the head.

Though taken to a hospital, he passed away.

According to the sources, a stray bullet struck and injured a woman in a different vehicle.

According to a government official who spoke to AFP, Martinez, who was in his 50s, was given protection by the local government under a federal program for reporters who receive death threats after surviving a shooting in 2022.

The Mexican representative for Reporters Without Borders, Balbina Flores, told AFP, “He was a journalist who was in danger.”

She said, “He was a colleague with many years of experience who was well known in Celaya.”

Martinez went by the moniker “El Hijo del Llanero Solititito,” which was a play on the title of his news page, “The Lone Ranger.”

Just before he was slain, a 20-minute video about a highway accident became viral and served as his final report. There are about 343,000 followers on his news portal.

News advocacy groups claim that Mexico, which has been severely affected by drug-related violence, is among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.

According to Reporters Without Borders, since 1994, more than 150 journalists have died in Mexico.

Federico Hans, a journalist from the northern Sonoran state town of Caborca, was shot and injured earlier this month while he was getting into his car outside of his house.

Additionally, Victor Culebro, the director of a different Facebook news page, was discovered dead on a highway in the state of Chiapas in the south on June 29.