Gunmen fatally shot a Mexican journalist who was preparing a livestream report from the scene of a cartel execution. The murder marks the third journalist killed in less than two weeks and the eighth of 2020.
On Monday morning, Israel Vasquez Rangel from El Salmantino was preparing his report from a crime scene in Salamanca, Guanajuato, when gunmen shot and left him injured, the city government revealed in a statement.
The journalist was tipped to a location where gunmen left a mutilated body. There was a considerably slow police response, law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas. Vasquez Rangel beat police to the scene.
Posted by El Salmantino on Monday, November 9, 2020
Emergency personnel eventually rushed the journalist to a hospital but he died shortly after transit.
Guanajuato has become one of Mexico’s most violent states where fuel theft and drug gangs like the now-defunct Cartel Santa Rosa de Lima fought with Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) for control of the region.
Vasquez Rangel’s murder comes in close succession to the killings of Jesus Alfonso Pinuelas in Cajeme, Sonora, and Arturo Alba Medina, the anchor for a local TV station in Ciudad Juarez.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
Tony Aranda from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project contributed to this report