Mexican Journalist Assassinated Minutes After Interview with Mayor

uruapan, michoacán, mexico - A Mexican journalist, Mauricio Cruz Solís, was brutally killed just minutes after interviewing the mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán. The shocking incident highlights the dangers faced by journalists in Mexico.

The first month of the six-year term of Mexico's new president has not yet passed, but the first journalist has already been murdered. Mauricio Cruz Solís had just conducted a critical interview with the mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán. Two minutes later, a car pulled up next to him in the city center, from which an armed man emerged and shot him dead.

The 25-year-old Cruz was the director of Radiorama Noticias, a radio host for the journalism website Primera Plana, and the founder/owner of the digital platform Minuto x Minuto Michoacán (Minute by Minute). He had been writing for the newspapers ABC and La Opinión in Michoacán for some time. For many residents of the city and the surrounding region, he was the primary source of local news.

On Tuesday evening, he was streaming live from the center of Uruapan, broadcasting his radio show La Jiribilla Night Show on his Facebook page. At the end of the broadcast, around 10:00 PM, the new mayor, wearing his distinctive Mexican sombrero, walked by. Cruz and his radio colleague Ezechiel approached him to question him about a recent fire in the market hall.

A few minutes after the interview, the young journalist's life was brutally ended on the street with four bullets. Colleagues of the slain journalist are demanding that the gunmen and those who ordered the hit be apprehended and brought to justice. They hold Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez partially responsible, as he has frequently engaged in hate speech against journalists at public events. They suspect that the hate sown by the mayor had taken root in Cruz's mind.

'Mayor Manzo is constantly picking fights,' said journalist Lucero Paz Estrada from Uruapan, and a friend of Mauricio Cruz, in the morning news to presenter Ciro Gómez Leyva on Radio Fórmula. 'When he was a congressman in the national parliament, he was always saying strange things. Now he's doing the same, but targeting journalists. He calls us corrupt and chayoteros.'

Chayoteros is a Mexican term for corrupt journalists who enrich themselves by colluding with political authorities. There were many of them during the reign of the PRI's enlightened dictatorship in the last century.

'Manzo once claimed that journalists covering a murder attempt had stolen firearms and handed them over to a criminal gang,' Paz continued. 'After that, we were insulted by citizens on social media and during our work on the street. He exposed us to danger.'

The newly appointed mayor on September 1st accuses journalists of looting the municipal treasury. 'That's fake news,' said Lucero Paz. 'In his so-called press conferences titled 'Nochecitas del Sombrero' (Evenings of The Hat), he always emphasizes that he doesn't need the press. He is reaching out to the citizens of Uruapan through his own social networks.'

In an interview with the same news channel, Mayor Manzo denied the allegations. 'That's her opinion. Chayoteros spread fake news through their websites. In reality, we haven't organized press conferences yet because there's no money. Everything was looted under the previous municipal government. Several irregularities have been identified with the budget. 40 million pesos (€1.8 million) has been paid to various media outlets. There is no budget.'