A mayoral candidate was shot dead at a campaign event in the north-central Mexican state of Guanajuato, just hours after requesting security protection.
Gisela Gaytán was walking down a street on Monday afternoon, the second day of her campaign for mayor of Celaya, when armed men approached her on two motorcycles and opened fire before fleeing.
Images captured by a passerby showed at least two wounded men on the sidewalk and Gaytán lying face down in a pool of blood. Another woman, who appeared to have been shot, was found sitting on the floor of a store.
A spokesperson for the Guanajuato Attorney General’s Office told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that no arrests had been made.
Hours before the shooting, Gaytán announced on Facebook that he had met with businessmen from a local market to declare that changes were coming for Celaya, which in 2023 was ranked as the most dangerous city in the world with 109.4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
“Together, with determination and commitment, we will make the change we long for a reality,” he stated. ‘We want a Celaya where each person has the opportunity to prosper, we want transformation.’
Gisela Gaytán became the latest candidate for public office to be murdered in Mexico ahead of the June elections when she was executed in a street while campaigning in the city of Celaya on Monday.
Diego Pérez is one of at least 15 candidates in Mexico who have been murdered since early 2024. Pérez was running for office in the southern state of Chiapas and was found dead on March 14. His wife and his son were injured.
Tomás Morales aspired to be mayor of Chilapa, a municipality in the state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast, and was shot dead in front of his home on March 12.
Gaytán, who was running under the ruling Morena party, apparently had an uphill battle in a municipality where the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel exerts its control and murdered Mayor Javier Mendoza’s son in August 2022.
Police sources told the Mexican media Milenio that the attack occurred in an area of the city influenced by the criminal organization.
Security analyst David Saucedo told the outlet that Gaytán had been threatened in the past by the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel for refusing to align with them.
Authorities recovered one of the two motorcycles and were investigating whether the bullet casings matched others that were recovered from previous criminal incidents.
Adrián Guerrero, Morena’s candidate for the Celaya municipal council, was initially reported dead by Federal Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez on Tuesday, but was found safe and sound at the state prosecutor’s office in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende.
A forensic technician works at the place where the candidate for mayor of Celaya for the ruling Morena party, Gisela Gaytán, was shot dead on Tuesday
Guillermo Torres, mayor of Churumuco, was shot dead in a taqueria on Saturday
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported the shooting during his daily press conference on Tuesday.
“These events are very regrettable, because they are people who are fighting to defend democracy, they are in the street, face to face,” said López Obrador.
The killing was the latest in the increasingly bloody period leading up to Mexico’s June 2 elections.
At least 15 candidates have been killed since the beginning of 2024 and expressions of regret have become routine.
Diego Pérez, a mayoral candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the southern city of San Juan Cancuc, was found shot to death and tortured on March 14. His wife and his son were injured.
Armando Pérez, candidate of the National Action Party in Maravatío, Michoacán, is one of the seven Mexican politicians murdered since January
Tomás Morales, who aspired to become mayor of the Pacific coast city of Chilapa during Morena’s government, was executed in front of his home on March 12.
At least 34 candidates have given up running for public office in the western state of Michoacán, according to data released by the state’s electoral board and political parties on March 25.
Another 12 dropped out of the mayoral and municipal council elections last Tuesday in the central state of Morelos.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Gaytán’s murder, but Mexico’s drug cartels have often focused their assassination attempts on mayors and mayoral candidates, in an attempt to control local police or extort governments. municipal.
López Obrador acknowledged that drug cartels often seek to determine who will fill the mayor’s office, either by presenting their own candidate or eliminating potential rivals.
‘They make an agreement and say: ‘this person is going to be mayor; “We don’t want anyone else to register to run,” and anyone who does, well, knows “what to expect,” the president said.
Recent killings have prompted the government to provide bodyguards or bulletproof cars for some, but candidates for municipal office – although they are most at risk – are last in line for security.
The Morena party leadership issued a statement calling the murder “cowardly” and calling for an investigation.
Rodríguez, federal security secretary, said Tuesday that the government made a commitment to respond to protection requests within 72 hours. He said more than 100 candidates across the country have asked for protection.
Guanajuato has for some time had the highest number of homicides of any state in Mexico.
Celaya is possibly the most dangerous place, per capita, to be a police officer in North America. At least 34 police officers have been murdered in this city of 500,000 inhabitants in the last three years.
Guanajuato, with a population of just over 6 million, recorded 60 police murders in 2023.
The state has been plagued for years by violent turf battles between the Jalisco drug cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel.
Violence against politicians is widespread in Mexico.
Over the weekend, Guillermo Torres, mayor of Churumuco, a town in the neighboring state of Michoacán, was shot to death at a taco restaurant in the state capital, Morelia.
At the end of February, in another town in Michoacán, two mayoral candidates were shot to death within a few hours of each other.