• MURDER: The former governor of Mexico’s western state of Jalisco, Aristóteles Sandoval, was shot dead Friday morning after an unidentified gunman targeted him in the bathroom of a restaurant in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta where he was on vacation, state authorities reported.
•DETAILS: Governor of the state of Jalisco between 2013 and 2018 and member of the PRI political party, Sandoval had arrived for dinner at a late-night restaurant where he was attacked. According to state authorities, a shootout ensued after Sandoval’s bodyguards tried to get him to a hospital.
• FORENSICS: “In a very unfortunate way, the restaurant staff manipulated the (crime) scene. There is practically no evidence, they swept, they removed everything, so it will cost us a little more work”, Gerardo Octavio Solís, the Attorney General for the state of Jalisco, said during a TV interview.
• PRECEDENT: According to Mural newspaper, two high-ranking members of Sandoval’s administration had previously been targets of violent attacks. First, Sandoval’s then Secretary of Tourism was murdered in 2013 and in 2018, his former Attorney General survived a shooting.
