Authorities say that a mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán was shot and killed in a public plaza on Saturday evening.
Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, the mayor of Uruapan, was killed in front of onlookers in the town’s historic center during Day of the Dead celebrations. A bodyguard and city councilor were also injured in the violent attack.
Rodríguez was rushed to the hospital after being shot seven times by an unidentified man, but later succumbed to his injuries, according to state prosecutor Carlos Torres Piña. According to Piña, the weapon used was connected to armed clashes between local criminal groups in the region.
“No line of investigation is being ruled out to clarify this cowardly act that took the life of the mayor,” García Harfuch said, per The Independent.
Michoacán remains one of the most violent states in Mexico, with cartel and criminal groups routinely vying for territory and drug distribution routes.
In August, The Dallas Express reported that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Michoacán cartels and seven cartel members for drug trafficking, terrorism, and extorting farmers.
On Sunday, hundreds of people took to the streets in Uruapan dressed in black and holding up photographs of Rodríguez. The mourners shouted “Justice! Justice! Out with Morena!” referring to the country’s ruling party of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Rodríguez had been pleading with Sheinbaum on social media for months to help rein in the cartels and criminal elements in his town. He even accused the state’s pro-government governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, and the state police of corruption.
Rodríguez was known as “The Mexican Bukele,” a reference to the tough-on-crime President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who has led a massive reduction of crime in his country. Rodríguez’s murder comes just months after Salvador Bastidas, mayor of the municipality of Tacambaro, also in Michoacan, was killed after arriving home in the town’s Centro neighborhood.