Alejandro Arcos Catalán was sworn in as mayor of Chilpancingo, the capital of the southern state of Guerrero, on 30 September, a day before Mexico's first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, took power herself.
On Monday, less than a week into her presidency, Sheinbaum confirmed reports that the 43-year-old city leader had been killed on the previous day, saying: “All the necessary investigations are taking place.”
Photographs of Arcos Catalán's bloodied head, exhibited on the roof of a white vehicle while his body lay slumped inside, spread on social media - a terrible reminder of the violence that Mexico's organised crime conflict has inflicted.
The mayor's murder came after two close allies were shot dead in the early days of his short-lived administration. A secretary, Francisco Tapia, was gunned down on 3 October, while Ulises Hernández Martínez, a former special forces police commander who was tipped to become Arcos Catalán's security chief, was riddled with bullets on the eve of the mayor's inauguration.
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