Mexican journalist killed in border-town ambush

Authorities in the Mexican state of Sonora are investigating the death of a journalist and radio host in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, across the border from San Luis, Arizona, after he was gunned down at his home.

According to the Sonora Reporters Network, a journalists’ collective in the state, armed gunmen showed up at the home of Santiago Barroso, 47, and when he opened the door, they shot him three times.

He died at an area hospital.

His death over the weekend is the fourth slaying of a reporter in Mexico this year. Mexico is considered the most deadly country for journalists that is not actively at war, according to the latest report from non-profit press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Barroso was well-known in the community, according to the Sonora Reporters Network. He hosted a daily one-hour show titled “Good Morning San Luis,” which aired on the 91.1 FM Rio Digital station and which streamed on social media.

On his last program, posted online 14 hours before he was shot, Barroso walked listeners though the day’s latest headlines, including the latest incident of smugglers in the area trafficking Central American migrants to the United States in plain daylight.

That has become commonplace in San Luis. In the past few weeks, U.S. border agents have reported large numbers of mainly Central American families, some traveling in groups as large as 300, crossing the border with the help of smugglers and then turning themselves in to agents.

Reading from a local newspaper report on his show, Barroso chronicled how on Thursday evening a “pollero,”

or smuggler, had assembled nearly a dozen migrants at a portion of outdated fencing in the middle of the city of San Luis Rio Colorado. The smuggler signaled for them to burrow under the corrugated metal to get into Arizona. They then jumped a secondary fencing on the U.S. side before dispersing among the homes in San Luis, Arizona.

“The authorities here in San Luis, where were they?” Barroso asked. “But if the (U.S. authorities) on the other side didn’t notice, maybe that’s their excuse.”

Barroso ran the online news site Red 653, which covered the San Luis Rio Colorado area. The most recent story posted to the site was from the day before Barroso’s killing.

Possible motives in Barroso’s death remain unclear, but Mexican media reported that the attorney general for Sonora was looking into whether his work as a reporter was tied to his death.

The Arizona Republic reached out to the Attorney General’s Office for comment, but has not heard back yet.

Over the weekend, Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich condemned Barroso’s killing.

“I have asked for an in-depth investigation to get to bottom of this,” she tweeted. “I offer my condolences to the family of Santiago as well as to his journalism colleagues.”

On Monday, the Sonora Reporters Network held a rally in Hermosillo, the state capital, to press the state government to fully investigate the shooting and bring his killers to justice.

In response to Barroso’s death, a letter, signed by a dozen journalism groups in Mexico as well as more than 50 individual reporters, urged officials at the federal, state and local governments to do more to protect journalists.

“We also reject any act of intimidation on behalf of public officials that seek to obstruct or silence journalist that is critical of them,” the document read.