Mayoral Candidate from Oaxaca Survives Assassination Attempt; His Daughter Was Injured

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Hugo Jairo Hernández

Armed men shot at Hugo Jairo Hernandez, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate for municipal president of Mariscala de Juárez, Oaxaca. He was not injured but his daughter was shot in the left side of her abdomen and she had to be rushed to the hospital where she is reportedly in stable condition.

On the morning of May 19, 2021, Hugo Jairo Hernández was carrying out campaign functions at the municipal sports complex of Mariscala de Juárez, a town near the Oaxaca border with Puebla and Guerrero. He reportedly left the facility, accompanied by his family and staffers, because he wanted to check on the painting of some billboards and fences with his campaign proposals.

A group of armed men traveling in a black SUV, who had allegedly been following Jairo Hernández since he first left his house that morning, attacked the candidate after he left the municipal sports complex and was walking nearby. Jairo Hernández later described the attack, saying “When I was taking a picture of one of my fences. I was stepping backwards to go for another one, when I heard my wife say, 'Shit!'. I saw a SUV; they were already getting out with guns and they put on their hoods. They started shooting at us.”

Jairo Hernández managed to avoid the bullets and ran to his white Volkswagen SUV, which appears in photos to not have bulletproof glass. He began driving towards his father-in-law’s house with his family sheltered inside his vehicle. His daughter, who was sitting in the front seat of the car, was then hit, receiving a bullet wound in the left abdomen.

Once they reached the father-in-law’s house, family and staffers organized a vehicle caravan that moved to get his daughter to a hospital. On the way, State police and a Red Cross ambulance were able to join them. The daughter received aid inside the ambulance and was then rushed to the Pilar Sánchez Villavicencio General Hospital in Huajuapan de Léon. The State Prosecutor’s office later confirmed that Hugo’s daughter was currently in stable condition.

Special police protection was provided to both the daughter recovering in the hospital and Jairo Hernández’s whole family. There were no arrests immediately following the attack. A multidisciplinary team, composed of state investigators, agents of the prosecutor’s office and forensic experts were sent to cordon off the scene of the shooting and begin processing the scene for evidence.

He said despite fearing for his and his family’s safety, he refuses to drop out of the electoral race. “We will continue in the race. I did not enter for money. I entered to save the town and of course, we will continue in the race, despite putting my family at risk. It is the cost of this.”

Jairo Hernández later told reporters: "The shots were not a threat, they were directly at me and my family. There will be a complaint and I will ask the justice system to get to the aggressors. It is not the first time that this has happened in the area, it is a very risky zone."

In the last few months, attacks against public figures in Oaxaca have ended far deadlier. As covered by Borderland Beat, on March 21 2021, candidate for mayor of Ocotlan de Morales, Ivonne Gallegos was killed by alleged cartel members. Her husband was killed six year earlier in a similar fashion. The police chief of San Pablo Coatlán and two officers were killed April 5, 2021 and their car immolated. Juan Carlos Díaz Aragón, a prominent writer, was killed April 15, 2021.

Sources: Proceso, El Financiero, Razón, Imagenzac, ADN40, Latinus, Diario Marca

Photos: @LupitaJuarezH on twitter, Proceso