Mexican reporter gunned down, even with a security detail at his side

Mexico City: Alejandro Martínez was no stranger to covering the kind of news that took him to crime scenes and fatal accidents across Celaya, a city in central Mexico that has become a cauldron of violence as murder cases pile up.

His job was so dangerous that he had his own government-appointed security detail, which usually drove him to his reporting locations. But even the police officers assigned to protect him were not enough to stop unknown gunmen from killing Martínez, 57, on Sunday.

Shortly after wrapping up a Facebook livestream covering a traffic accident on a highway near the city, Martínez was shot in the police vehicle that was taking him back to Celaya by assailants who approached in another car. The two transit police officers in the vehicle were also wounded.

"Well, friends, I'm leaving now," he had told his viewers just minutes earlier on what would be his last livestream. "I really thank you for your attention and for putting up with the nonsense I say."

Celaya's Security Ministry said in a statement that the two police officers immediately took Martínez to a hospital, but he died shortly after. At least three bullet holes were visible on the vehicle, according to local media.

A team of forensic experts and prosecutors was assigned to investigate his murder and find the killers, said the attorney general's office in Guanajuato, the state where Celaya is. It is unclear whether Martínez was the intended target of the attack or if the gunmen were after the police officers with him.

Martínez -- whom some mourning residents called "the voice of Celaya" for his work covering community news and crime -- survived an assassination attempt in 2022, after which he requested protection from the federal and state governments. He no longer went to work without his security detail, and he stopped covering shootings.

Celaya was once a prosperous and peaceful hub in Guanajuato state, with major national highways and railways connecting it to the United States. A vibrant auto industry drew families to live amid its beautiful colonial architecture.

But in the past few years, the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel has been in a dangerous turf war with the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel for control in the state, resulting in a spike in disappearances and homicides where almost everyone, from aspiring politicians to vendors suffering extortion to relatives searching for their loved ones, has been attacked.

At least 98 police officers have been killed across Guanajuato since the start of 2023 -- 41 of them in Celaya alone, according to data compiled by the Mexican organization Common Cause.

Reporters have also been the victims of this violence. In June, the body of Víctor Manuel Jiménez Campos, another journalist from Celaya, who went missing in 2020 after covering a baseball game, was found in a water well along with the remains of other people.

"We are still living in a spiral of violence that has not stopped, that has trapped us for many years," said Balbina Flores, Mexico's representative to the international organisation Reporters Without Borders. "The big question that it leaves us with is, who protects us? Who protects journalists?"

Mexico stands out as the most dangerous country in the Americas for reporters, and one of the most dangerous across the world -- surpassed only by active war zones. A total of 166 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 in relation to their work, according to the press freedom organization Article 19.

Of these, 47 have been slain during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who on his first day in office vowed no more journalists would be killed in Mexico.

The killings, however, have not stopped. "It's easy to promise something that you're not going to deliver," said Flores. Instead, López Obrador has mostly focused on minimising the killings, attacking the press for their critical reporting and accusing his opponents of using the threat against journalists in Mexico to hurt his administration.

"It seems that the murders of journalists -- because that is the idea that they have planted -- have only occurred during this government," López Obrador said in a news conference in March.

Martínez was not the first reporter to be killed after receiving protection from the government, according to Flores, who said her organization has documented at least 10 such cases -- five of them during the López Obrador administration.

Sunday's killing once again sends a "bleak message" to other journalists across the country, she added.

More than 650 journalists were receiving protection from the Mexican government in November of last year, according to Amnesty International -- though the number of rejected requests has increased over the years.

"There is no comprehensive policy that considers reviewing the protection and prevention measures given to journalists in high-risk areas, such as Guanajuato," said Flores.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office in October, signed a letter during her campaign promising to revise Mexico's protection policies for journalists, prioritize the search for missing reporters and permanently monitor security threats to prevent violence against the press.

In a 2021 interview, a reporter asked Martínez if he had gotten used to violence in Celaya. "No," he said. "It hurts me to see Celaya like this. It hurts me to see everything that is happening. It hurts me to see dead people."

He then took a second to breathe and wipe the tears from his face. "All of this hurts me," he said.