Mexico City, Mexico—- On August 4, renowned crime reporter Alejandro Martínez Noguez was murdered in Celaya, Guanajuato. The journalist was accompanied by his security detail during the armed attack, as he had been under city protection for more than two years following a failed assassination attempt.
Martínez Noguez was a journalist with over 35 years of experience covering crime and police stories in Guanajuato, known as “el Hijo del Llanero solititito,” a play on words referencing the world-famous pulp character The Lone Ranger. Noguez was known for his intricate and personal reporting on local stories in one of Mexico’s most dangerous states.
Reportedly, Noguez was covering a traffic accident at the time of his murder when unidentified assailants shot at the transit patrol escorting him.
The attack took place on a highway to Celaya, where Noguez lived. According to initial reports, a white truck boarded the patrol car and shot, injuring the officers and killing the journalist.
Noguez had already survived a murder attempt in November 2022 outside his home, prompting the state to assign him security measures, including a guard detail. However, authorities are yet to determine if the attack was directly targeted at him or the police officers escorting him.
Human rights organizations such as Article 19 condemned Noguez’s murder and the violent climate in which journalists in Mexico have to work and survive, with 167 documented reporter murders since 2000 to date, 48 reported during the administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The organization emphasized that Mexico is currently “one of the most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism” and reported that Celaya was among the top 5 states with the most cases of violence against the press in 2023.
Celaya has loomed as one of the most violent cities in the country, reporting high numbers of homicides and overall insecurity.
Home to some 521,000 inhabitants, the small city of Guanajuato in central Mexico has been cited as the most dangerous city worldwide, reporting a homicide rate of 109.4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
The central economic city of Guanajuato has been caught up in the expansion of criminal groups, leaving behind a wave of murders and disappearances.
Violence has worsened in recent years, with local forces proving ineffective in the face of the resources and reckless violence of criminal groups. Last year alone, 22 police officers were killed in the city.
Celebrating a long career as a journalist, digital news outlet ForoTV interviewed Noguez in 2021, asking the seasoned reporter about his experience covering the situation in his native Celaya.
“Violence does not make you tired, violence makes me very sad, violence hurts me. It hurts me to see Celaya like this, it hurts me to see everything that is happening, it hurts me to see people dead, it hurts me to see all this,” Noguez told Forotv.
