22 June 2004
Francisco Ortiz Franco
Shooting
Gunmen ambushed and killed a deputy director of a crusading Mexican newspaper Tuesday, the state attorney general's office.
Baja California officials said that Francisco Ortiz Franco was with his children at the time, but they were unharmed. The weekly, Zeta, has gained attention for its reporting on the influence of drug traffickers in Tijuana. The newspaper's co-founder Hector Felix Miranda was ambushed and killed April 20, 1988. Two men were convicted in the shooting. In 1997, the newspaper's publisher, Jesus Blancornelas, was badly wounded in a gangland-style attack that killed his bodyguard and driver.
