Solís had just finished a street interview in front of City Hall with Mayor Carlos Manzo. Manzo told local media that he left and “two minutes later, I think, and only a few meters away, I heard gunshots, four or five gunshots.”

“We took cover because we thought the attack was targeting us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they attacked.”

Manzo said he could not rule out a connection between the interview and the murder.

The UN rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. He said he had previously reported security issues related to his work. His Facebook page reported on events in the community and the drug cartel violence that ravaged the city.

“His killing is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.

A growing number of journalists killed in Mexico were freelancers and reported for local Facebook and online news sites.

Uruapan is the closest big city to the avocado-growing region of Michoacan and has been the scene of extortion by drug cartels and turf battles between gangs. The cartels demand protection money from local avocado and lime groves, cattle ranches and just about any other business.

Solís was reporting a suspicious fire at a local market just before the shooting. Gangs have sometimes burned down businesses that refuse to pay extortion demands.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries in her restaurant in Colima and died at the scene, according to the Colima state prosecutor’s office.

Local media said Ramírez, who was better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog about local entertainment and was a contributor to a Colima newspaper.

The US Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both murders and called for transparent investigations.