A journalist was gunned down in a bar near Playa del Carmen on Friday night. José Guadalupe Chan Dzib was directly targeted inside “La Baticueva” located in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Chan Dzib was a police reporter for Playa News Aqui y Ahora and other media outlets.
Local news outlets reported the Forensic Medical Service (Semefo) took custody of the victim’s body and will be forwarding a final report of findings to the state attorney general’s office.
Since 2016, Mexico suffered the murders of at least 32 journalists with most of those cases still unsolved and a majority is believed to be work-related. Mexico continues to be the most dangerous place for journalists where attacks on press freedom come at the hands of organized crime and government officials.
Nine other Mexican journalists were killed in 2018.
May 29 — Hector Gonzales Antonio, a national correspondent for Excelsior and worked in various local outlets was kidnapped, tortured, and dumped in the vacant lot.
May 24 — Alicia Diaz Gonzalez, a financial writer for one of Mexico’s largest publications, was found beaten to death in her home in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.
May 14 — Juan Carlos Huerta Martínez, a reporter and broadcast host, was killed by a team of gunmen outside his home in Tabasco.
March 21 — Leobardo Vázquez Atzin ran the online news site Enlace Informativo Regional in Veracruz who reported on a local mayor tied to an illicit property grab and was killed by a team of gunmen.
February 14 — Pedro Damián Gómez Bonifaz, director-owner of the Panorama Político, was found dead with obvious signs of trauma apparently caused by a sharp-edged weapon at his home in Tijuana, Baja California.
February 5 — Leslie Ann Pamela Montenegro del Real, a popular YouTube personality and blogger who used the pseudonym ‘La Nana Pelucas,’ was gunned down while having dinner at a restaurant in Acapulco.
January 21 — Agustín Silva Vásquez, a freelance police reporter from El Sol del Istmo, disappeared in Matías Romero, Oaxaca, according to his family members who reported his kidnapping. Silva Vásquez is presumed dead.
January 13 — Carlos Dominguez Rodriguez was ambushed and killed by a team of assassins in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, who stabbed him to death in front of his family. Authorities arrested a relative of the former mayor of Nuevo Laredo and several other individuals allegedly linked to the case.
January 6 — José Gerardo Martínez Arriaga, an editor with El Universal, was purchasing toys for his family in Mexico City when he was robbed and killed at gunpoint.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com