Ex-governor of cartel-ravaged Mexican state gunned down in beach resort

[Judi Lynn]

DECEMBER 18, 20209:00 PM UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO

By Tomas Bravo

4 MIN READ

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The former governor of the Mexican state of Jalisco was shot dead early on Friday in a restaurant bathroom in the beach town of Puerto Vallarta, one of the most high profile political killings since Mexico embarked on its “War on Drugs” in 2006.

Jalisco state officials said Aristoteles Sandoval was shot in the back by an unidentified assailant while his security detail were outside. A shootout erupted as his bodyguards began moving Sandoval to hospital.

Mexico is struggling to tame raging violence across the country, with Jalisco one of the epicenters of internecine cartel warfare that last year drove murders to an all-time high with 34,670 homicides recorded.

Sandoval’s 2013-18 term as governor was overshadowed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which rose from obscurity to become one of the most powerful in Mexico, leaving a trail of death and defiance behind it.

Today the CJNG competes with the Sinaloa Cartel of imprisoned kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman for control of much of the drug trade inside Mexico as well as to the United States.

More:
https://in.reuters.com/article/mexico-crime/ex-governor-of-cartel-ravaged-mexican-state-gunned-down-in-beach-resort-idINKBN28T06O



Aristoteles Sandoval

















Such a joyful man, so full of life, so humble, so gracious. Qué lástima!

[snowybirdie]

1. Lived in Puerto Vallarta

for several years. Beautiful, peaceful and drug war free. So sad to see it becoming unsafe.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Mexico: assassin shoots former state governor in restaurant bathroom

Aristóteles Sandoval was shot in the back in bathroom in Puerto Vallarta, and died soon afterwards at local hospital

Analy Nuño in Guadalajara
Fri 18 Dec 2020 11.22 EST

The former governor of Mexico’s violence-wracked western state of Jalisco has been shot dead in a restaurant bathroom in the popular beach resort of Puerto Vallarta.

Aristóteles Sandoval was dining with four others when at around 1.40 on Friday he got up from the table and went to the toilet, where the killer shot him in the back, said the state attorney general, Gerardo Octavio Solís.

Sandoval did not die immediately, but when his bodyguards tried to evacuate him from the restaurant, their escape was blocked by more gunmen in the street outside, who opened fire, seriously injuring one of the bodyguards. The former governor died soon afterwards at a local hospital.

Sandoval had been assigned 15 police bodyguards, but only two were with him during the attack.

“A lot of planning went into this murder – which means that someone had been hunting him for weeks, if not months. Someone who knew his movements, who knew more or less when he would not have all his bodyguards,” said security analyst Alejandro Hope.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/aristoteles-sandoval-mexico-jalisco-shot-dead-puerto-vallartat