Recently elected Mexico mayor is shot dead in the head inside bus by his assassins in popular resort city

An elected mayor was murdered on a bus in the Mexican resort of Acapulco early Monday morning.

Retired Navy Captain Salvador Villalba, 53, was returning from a meeting with military officials in Mexico City when armed men intercepted the bus, the Guerrero attorney general’s office said.

Milenio News Outlet reported that three assailants pulled the driver out of the bus and attacked him.

Two of the suspects then entered the vehicle and searched for Villalba seat by seat until they were able to match him to a photo they had of him on a smartphone before shooting him four times.

A woman riding the bus was also struck by the gunfire and was rushed to a local hospital, where she is recovering and in stable condition.

News network Milenio reported that the gunmen entered the bus and searched every seat, comparing the passengers to a photo on a smartphone before finding mayor-elect Salvador Villalba and shooting him four times.

At least 34 political candidates have been murdered in Mexico in the run-up to the June 2 elections, according to human rights organization Data Civica. However, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government recorded only 23 murders.

Villalba decided to seek office after his friend, Ecological Green Party of Mexico leader Jesús González, was assassinated in June 2023 after coming forward with allegations that Mayor Guadalupe García, Villalba’s cousin, had threatened him with violence if he didn’t clarify. the path for her favorite candidates for public office.

News outlet Milenio reported that Villalba was offered money to drop out of the race at the start of his campaign, but declined to do so.

He joined the Mexico Advances Movement party and defeated Morena candidate José Chávez, receiving 39 percent of the vote.

Villalba had two federal police officers assigned as security officers, but the protection was only valid during travel within the state of Guerrero.

The Guerrero attorney general’s office said the gunmen intercepted the bus that mayor-elect and retired Navy captain Salvador Villalba was traveling on after attending a meeting with military officials in Mexico City and shot him dead.

Salvador Villalba, the mayor-elect of the city of Copala in southern Mexico, poses with his father in a photo, one of many he shared on Facebook on Sunday to celebrate Father’s Day

Retired Navy Captain Salvador Villalba was offered money to abandon his campaign, but declined and was subsequently elected mayor of the city of Copala in southern Mexico.

On Sunday, Copala’s mayor-elect took to Facebook to share a series of photos and videos of him and his father to commemorate Father’s Day.

In his last post he thanked supporters for his election as mayor.

“The people are with me and I will not abandon them,” he declared.

His brother, Jesús Villalba, called on President López Obrador to ensure the attackers are arrested and prosecuted.

“We don’t know how it happened, how everything was handled so that my brother’s life was taken,” Jesús Villalba told the local news station. Prensa Libre de la Costa. “He was someone who had a goal and thank God he achieved it, he won. I don’t understand why he took his life.

“If he was going to work good or bad, they should have let him do it, but they shouldn’t have taken his life.”