Mexican journalist under police protection killed: government

CELAYA, Mexico: A Mexican crime reporter who was under police protection because of an attempt on his life was shot and killed on Sunday, local officials said.

Alejandro Martinez Noguez, who ran a popular news outlet on Facebook, was killed while riding in a car with his bodyguards in the central state of Guanajuato after a reporting assignment, the security department of the city of Celaya said.

“Civilian attackers in a pickup truck opened fire with long guns at a car assigned to the reporter and his team of bodyguards by the city government,” the secretariat said in a statement.

Police sources told AFP that highway police traveling with Martinez fired back at the assailants but the reporter was shot in the head while sitting in the back seat. He was rushed to a hospital but died. A woman in another car was hit and wounded by a stray bullet, the sources said.