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Woman mayor killed in Mexico day after Claudia Sheinbaum’s historic presidential win
The mayor of a town in western Mexico was killed on Monday, the regional government said, barely 24 hours after Claudia Sheinbaum was elected the Latin American country’s first woman president.
The Michoacan state government condemned “the murder of the municipal president (mayor) of Cotija, Yolanda Sanchez Figueroa,” the regional interior ministry said in a post on social media.
The murder of the woman mayor comes after Sheinbaum’s landslide victory injected hope for change in a country riven by rampant gender-based violence.
facebook.com/LicYolandaSanchezF
Sanchez, who was elected mayor in 2021 elections, was gunned down on a public road, according to local media. Her Facebook profile says she is “defined by my preparation and the desire to make Cotija a better place to live.”
Authorities have not given details on the murder, but said a security operation had been launched to arrest the killers.
The politician was previously kidnapped in September last year while leaving a shopping mall in the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, which neighbors Michoacan.
Three days later the federal government said she had been found alive.
According to local media reports at the time, the kidnappers belonged to the powerful Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG), who allegedly threatened the mayor for opposing the criminal group’s takeover of her municipality’s police force.
Michoacan is renowned for its tourist destinations and a thriving agro-export industry, but is also one of the most violent states in the country due to the presence of extortion and drug trafficking gangs. In March, three farmers were killed by a bomb apparently planted in a dirt road in Michoacan — just days after Mexico’s outgoing president acknowledged that an improvised explosive device killed at least four soldiers in what he called a “trap” likely set by a cartel.
Election marked by bloodshed
At least 23 political candidates were killed while campaigning before the elections — including one mayoral hopeful whose murder was captured on camera last week. Alfredo Cabrera’s death came just one day after a mayoral candidate in the central Mexican state of Morelos was murdered.
The week before that, nine people were killed in two attacks against mayoral candidates in the southern state of Chiapas. The two candidates survived.
Last month, six people, including a minor and mayoral candidate Lucero Lopez, were killed in an ambush after a campaign rally in the municipality of La Concordia, neighboring Villa Corzo.
One mayoral hopeful was shot dead last month just as she began campaigning.
Around 27,000 soldiers and National Guard members were deployed to reinforce security on election day.
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.
A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego.
According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.
CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge.
Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.
Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.
The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
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