Monday, June 2, 2025

Doctor who ran for mayor to end violence in critical condition after attack

A Chihuahua doctor who was motivated to run for mayor by ongoing criminal violence is in critical condition today after he was shot last night by a lone attacker.

Blas Godínez was working in his clinic in Gómez Farías at 9:30pm when a gunman entered and shot him in the head at close range, his brother said.

He was transferred to a hospital in Cuauhtémoc and later to the city of Chihuahua for surgery.

Godínez won the election for mayor of Gómez Farías, one of the state’s most violent municipalities, on July 1 and was to be sworn in today.

He said in July that the violence and the disappearance of his father, also a doctor, provided strong motivation to contest the mayor’s seat.

Blas Godínez Loya was kidnapped November 8, presumably by a criminal gang, and has not been seen since. Officials suspect he was taken to treat gang members wounded in the gun battles that are part of a bloody turf war between rival gangs.

“What happened to my father marked my life in many ways and one of them was politics,” Godínez Jr. said during the election campaign. It convinced him to “take the radical decision to start working with the people, with my municipality . . . to make Gómez Farías a better place to live,” he said.

Source: El Heraldo (sp), El Pueblo (sp)

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
worker sorting food

Mazatlán sets a Guinness World Record with kilometer-long sashimi

0
The event brought together hundreds of tourists and locals, who enjoyed more than 19,000 pieces of sashimi made with over two tons of fresh tuna.
AMLO voting in Mexico's judicial elections

AMLO breaks public absence to cast ballot in historic judicial vote

0
Former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador voted in Sunday's elections from Palenque, Chiapas, his first public appearance since finishing his six-year term eight months ago.
voting in Mexico's first-ever judicial election

Fewer than 1 in 7 Mexicans vote in first-ever judicial elections

1
Around 13 million Mexican citizens voted on Sunday, but 20% of all votes were invalid, either due to voters' mistakes or because they chose to annul their ballots on purpose.