Mayor of Mexican city murdered within week of appointment

Last Monday, Alejandro Arcos of the PRI party was sworn in as mayor of Chilpancingo, the capital of the violence-ridden state of Guerrero. After three days in office, Francisco Tapia, the president of his city council, was shot dead in the street. Three days later, Sunday, it was up to the mayor himself. Images of a severed head on an all-terrain vehicle circulated on social media, but there is no confirmation yet that it was the mayor’s.

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“His loss plunges our society into mourning and fills us with outrage,” Evelyn Salgado, the governor of Guerrero, wrote in a statement on social media. Other politicians have also reacted with outrage to the deaths. “They were young and honest public servants who sought progress for their community,” Senator Alejandro Moreno wrote on social media. Die Moreno is the chairman of Arcos’ party, and calls on the public prosecutor’s office to thoroughly investigate the incidents. “The state appears to be ungovernable,” he wrote.

Guerrero is one of the states in Mexico where many politicians and journalists are killed.