An anti-crime activist was shot dead Tuesday night in northern Mexico only four days after accusing a company’s lawyer of threatening and intimidating him, according to multiple reports.
Adolfo Enríquez Vanderkam was shot dead after his dinner at a taco restaurant in central León in Guanajuato state, local outlet Contrapunto News reported. His companion was reportedly injured and over 30 bullet casings were found at the scene. The attacker fled on a motorcycle, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Enríquez amassed a large following online, where he regularly posted crime statistics and other anti-crime social activism, including a video of the fatal Aug. 10 stabbing of a woman, Milagro Montserrat, on her way to work. Enríquez’s leak of the video reportedly became controversial, TV Azteca Puebla reported.
Enríquez was killed four days after alleging online that a dental company’s lawyer threatened him for reporting the alleged “arbitrary and violent way” the clinic “charges for services that were never performed,” according to a Facebook post. He also had allegedly received several other threats, per Contrapunto News.
Asesinan al activista Adolfo Enriquez Vanderkam en Guanajuato.
Salía de un establecimiento de comida cuando fue baleado en el centro de León.
Recientemente informó ser él quién publicó el video del asesinato de Milagros Montserrat. pic.twitter.com/GWW7GT59hF— Monica Garza (@monicagarzag) November 22, 2023
“His murder leaves us with a profound reading about the difficult times to exercise denunciation and freedom of expression,” Mexican journalist and acquaintance Coco Bernal tweeted.
The Secretariat of Security, Prevention and Citizen Protection of León tweeted that it “maintains an intense search operation for the probable perpetrators with information collected at the scene of the incident.”
“All of this will be made available to the State Attorney General’s Office, the body with which we collaborate for the prompt clarification of this crime,” the Secretariat added. (RELATED: First ‘Nonbinary’ Mexican Magistrate Found Dead At Home)
León has the third-highest number of homicides in Mexico, behind Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, cities bordering the U.S., per AP.
“In the colony Las Margaritas, intentional homicide number 55 in what is going on in November in León,” Enríquez’s last Facebook post read.