One of Mexico’s best-known journalists said Friday that two gunmen on a motorcycle tried to kill him in a late-night attack on a Mexico City street.
Radio and television reporter Ciro Gómez Leyva posted a description of the attack and photos of his bullet-ridden vehicle on social media.
He said the attack occurred just before midnight on a street near his home, and that he was saved by the fact his SUV had bullet-proofing.
“Two hundred yards from my house, two people on a motorcycle shot at me, apparently with the clear intention of killing me,” Gómez Leyva wrote. Photos showed at least two bullets had impacted the driver’s side window of the vehicle.
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The Mexico City’s prosecutors office said it had opened an investigation.
This year has been among the deadliest ever for Mexican media workers, with 15 killed so far. But the killings and almost all the attacks have targeted journalists in provincial towns.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who often verbally spars with Gómez Leyva, condemned the attack.
A skyline of Mexico City, Mexico, is pictured on Sept. 23, 2022. A prominent Mexican journalist survived a gunman attack near his home in Mexico City.
( Cesar Rodriguez/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“He is a journalist, a human being, but what is more, he is a leader of public opinion, and injuries to a person like Ciro creates a lot of political instability,” López Obrador said.
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“We have differences, they are notorious and public, we are going to continue to have them,” the president said, “but it is completely reprehensible for anyone to be attacked.”
In his popular morning radio program, Gómez Leyva said of the president, “I don’t have differences with him. We do our work as journalists.”
López Obrador frequently uses his two-hour daily morning press briefings to accuse Gómez Leyva and other well-known journalists who criticize him of being part of a conservative conspiracy against his administration.
The president has frequently verbally attacked journalists, calling them names like “sold out,” “mercenaries,” and “thugs.” Press groups say the president’s hostile comments have contributed to making journalists less safe in Mexico.
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2022 has been one of the deadliest ever for journalists in Mexico, which is now considered the most dangerous country for reporters outside a war zone.
While organized crime is often involved in journalist killings, small town officials or politicians with political or criminal motivations are often suspects as well. Journalists running small news outlets in Mexico’s interior are easy targets.
