Benjamín Medrano (Screen capture via Canalb15fresnillo/YouTube)
Mexico’s first openly gay mayor was killed last week.
Media reports indicate former Fresnillo Mayor Benjamín Medrano was shot to death on July 7 inside an ice cream store in Guadalajara, the country’s second-largest city that is located in Jalisco state.
Fresnillo is a city in Zacatecas state.
Medrano, 59, in 2013 became Mexico’s first openly gay mayor. He represented Zacatecas’s First Federal Electoral District in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Mexican Congress, from 2015-2018.
Medrano in 2017 was among the elected officials from across Latin America and the Caribbean who attended a conference in the Dominican Republic that focused on bolstering LGBTQ and intersex political engagement in the region. The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute is among the groups that organized the gathering.
Medrano after he left office faced accusations that he embezzled more than 60 million pesos ($3,443,101.20) in public funds when he was president of the Zacatecas National Fair’s Board of Trustees.
La Voz de Fresnillo, a Fresnillo newspaper, reported Medrano did not have any identification with him when he was shot. A relative identified him two days later.
State and federal authorities have not announced a potential motive. They have also not made any arrests in connection with Medrano’s murder.
Anti-LGBTQ violence and kidnappings are commonplace in Mexico.
A gay couple from the U.S. were among four people found dead in a mass grave outside Mexico City last month.
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in February set fire to cars and buses in Puerto Vallarta, a resort city in Jalisco state that is a popular destination for LGBTQ tourists from the U.S., after Mexican forces killed its powerful leader.
Puerto Vallarta is roughly 180 miles west of Guadalajara.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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