• BRAZEN: State lawmaker Erick Juárez Blanquet was shot to death Tuesday morning in the colonial city of Morelia -the capital of the western state of Michoacán- as he was riding an SUV with two other people. After being chased by the police, two suspects in a motorcycle were arrested.
• IMPACTS: “It was determined that the victim received four projectile gunshots, two on the head and two on the thorax. In addition to a cheek splinter injury”, said Adrián López Solís, Michoacán state Attorney General, in which he did not offer any motive behind the attack.
• MAYOR: A member of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), Juárez Blanquet was a state representative for a district centered around the town of Puruándiro, near the violent Guanajuato state border. In February, another politician from the same region had been attacked but survived.
• MORELIA: The city of Morelia (pop. 784,000) is only one of two points in Michoacán where the US Department of State allows US citizens to travel. The rest of the state is off-limits. It is unknown whether the US Government could change Morelia’s status after Tuesday’s killing.
