A municipal councilor in Tecate, Baja California, was hospitalized in the United States on Tuesday after she was severely wounded in an armed attack in which her husband was killed.

Morena party Councilor María de Jesús Quijada and her husband Jesús Pereida came under attack Tuesday afternoon while traveling in a vehicle in Tecate, a city of around 110,000 people on Mexico’s northern border.

The couple’s 15-year-old daughter and a bodyguard were also wounded in the attack, perpetrated by a group of armed men, none of whom was immediately arrested. The perpetrators fled the scene in a white vehicle, according to local authorities. The vehicle was subsequently set alight, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Pereida, a former federal and municipal security official, died at the scene of the attack, while Quijada was reportedly taken by ambulance to the border with the United States before being flown by helicopter to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. The couple’s 15-year-old daughter, who was reportedly on her way to a school graduation with her parents, was also hospitalized.

The councilor was reportedly shot at least once in the head. Later on Tuesday, Quijada’s father told reporters he had been notified that his daughter and granddaughter were “out of danger.”

The motive for the crime was not immediately clear. Attacks on municipal officials are fairly common in Mexico, especially in parts of the country where there is a strong organized crime presence.

During the term of the current government, which took office in October 2024, 13 mayors have been murdered, Uno TV reported this week.

Among the victims are Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo, who was assassinated during a Day of the Dead event last November, and Joel Ángel Bravo Martínez, a mayor in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca who was killed last month.

With reports from La Jornada, Reforma, El Financiero and Zeta Tijuana