MEXICO CITY, May 22: The murders of two aides to Mexico City’s mayor, in a rush hour shooting on a busy avenue, were carefully planned by experienced gunmen, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Investigators said they were still establishing the motive behind Tuesday’s killing of mayor Clara Brugada’s personal secretary Ximena Guzman and advisor Jose “Pepe” Munoz.
“It was a direct attack with a significant degree of planning, and those who carried it out had prior experience,” public prosecutor Bertha Alcalde Lujan told a news conference.
One suspect was seen carrying out surveillance of the victims in the area of the attack in preceding days, she added.
Investigators believe the main gunman was assisted by three accomplices who helped him escape using several vehicles, including motorcycle.
Despite the apparent hallmarks of a gang hit, Lujan said: “We cannot conclude that this is linked to organized crime.”
Mexico City’s public security secretary Pablo Vazquez said that in recent weeks authorities had made “very significant arrests of leaders of criminal cells” in the capital.
“These arrests will continue, and the dismantling of criminal cells will continue,” he told reporters.
Guzman and Munoz were both members of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party, which also governs Mexico City.
Brugada is a close ally of Sheinbaum, who condemned the attack as “deplorable.”
While Mexico City has been spared the worst of the country’s raging criminal violence, it is not the first high-profile attack targeting public officials in the capital.
In June 2020, the city’s then security chief Omar Garcia Harfuch survived an attack by heavily armed gunmen who killed two of his bodyguards and a passerby.
Garcia Harfuch blamed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the drug trafficking groups recently designated terrorist organizations by US President Donald Trump.
Last July, Mexico City’s police special operations chief, Milton Figueroa, was murdered. – TVS
