MEXICO CITY (AP) – Javier Valdez was driving in broad daylight down a street he must have known well, just a block from his office, when he became the latest victim of a wave of journalist killings that has hit Mexico.
Masked gunmen forced Valdez from his red Toyota Camry, shot him dead and left his body in the middle of the street Monday, said Riodoce, the publication he helped start.
The car was found later in the afternoon on a sidewalk next to an elementary school, wedged between a utility pole and a wall with the motor still running and the gears engaged.
Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain in the northern state of Sinaloa, long a hotbed of drug cartel activity.
He is at least the sixth journalist murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the world’s deadliest countries for media professionals.