A Mexican mayoral candidate was tragically shot dead alongside three of her supporters including her daughter during a live broadcast of her campaign rally.
Yesenia Lara Gutierrez, representing Mexico‘s ruling Morena party, was gunned down in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz on Sunday night as she greeted residents in the streets of Texistepec.
The horrifying incident was captured on a Facebook livestream, showing people running and screaming as gunshots rang out off camera. Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that the candidate was greeting ‘women with children in their arms’ when the gunfire began.
Footage posted online depicted the chaos, with at least 20 shots head in the clip that was still available on Gutierrez’s Facebook page the following day. Other images shared online appeared to show bodies in the street.
Veracruz Governor Rocio Nahle, also of the Morena party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, said Monday that Gutierrez’s daughter was among those killed by gunmen.
‘No office or position is worth a person’s life,’ Nahle said in a press conference Monday, where she promised justice.
Gutierrez had posted several images on Facebook, showing her campaigning throughout the region. ‘The strength of our youth is the vitality that motivates me to keep walking day by day,’ she wrote just hours before the shooting.
This marks the second killing of a mayoral candidate in Veracruz during the current election cycle, following the April 29 murder of German Anuar Valencia, also from Morena.