Armando Rodríguez

Personal life Rodríguez lived in Juarez with his wife Blanca Martínez and their children, including daughter Ximena Rodriguez, who was a witness to her father's murder, and a son.

Career Rodríguez worked as crime journalist for 14 years and was on staff at El Diario, a daily newspaper in Juarez. He covered many stories on the Mexican drug war and other gang related violence in his city. He had also worked in TV and in print. Although his daughter Ximena was in the vehicle and witnessed her father's murder, she was uninjured. His son was still in the house at that time.

Context One of Rodríguez's last stories linked the nephew of Prosecutor Patricia González with organized crime. However, the investigator in the case was killed in July 2009 and the next appointed investigator in the same case was also killed shortly afterward.

In 2010, Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa announced progress in the case as federal investigators had a confession of a man who had been the alleged driver of the gunman and an arrest was made, but El Diario published a story about how the confession was extracted through torture. Furthermore, the newspaper said no arrest had been made two years after the murder. Another journalist from the newspaper, Emilio Gutiérrez, also chose exile across the border.

Reactions Jesús Meza, president of the local Association of Journalists in Ciudad Juarez, said, "He was a prominent journalist. He was known. So he was killed as a symbol. He was killed to create panic and paranoia. This is a technique of terrorism. They want everyone to be afraid, because that will destabilize the society."

Senator Shapleigh, who as a state senator in Texas represents El Paso, Texas, which is the sister city of Ciudad Juárez, said, "His murder is a brutal reminder of the increasing violence that has gripped our sister city and of the great courage it takes for media members like Rodriguez to cover this escalating war."

A spokesperson for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Carlos Lauria, said, "Mexico needs to break the cycle of impunity in crimes against journalists."