Press groups and family members on Saturday demanded justice for an Acapulco correspondent for Mexico's top television news network who was shot dead after his radio show in what appeared to be a premeditated hit. Juan Dillanes, half brother of slain Televisa reporter Amado Ramirez, said the killing was a loss for both his family and all media workers in Mexico, which some are now calling the most dangerous place for journalists in the Western Hemisphere. «I feel my family has had an enormous loss, and so have all the reporters,» Dillanes said. «I ask for justice, I ask that they clear this up because they have killed my brother, according to AP. Ramirez was shot late Friday by two gunmen who were waiting for him at his car, state security official Felipe Flores said. Ramirez died on the steps of the nearby Hotel California. Televisa confirmed the death on their nightly broadcast. The shooting happened on the outskirts of Acapulco's busy central plaza, which was packed at the time with tourists and hundreds of people attending a Good Friday Mass at the beach resort's cathedral. No one else was injured. The gunmen escaped, and the motive for the killing was not immediately clear. Police said Saturday that they had a description from a witness of at least one of the gunmen. Paris based Reporters Without Borders released a statement Saturday demanding the federal government immediately takes on the case. Homicides in Mexico are normally handled by state detectives, but a special federal prosecutor's office for crimes against journalists was created last year after a wave of attacks on reporters and editors. «Ramirez's death must be taken seriously by the authorities,» the press group said. «There must be a major effort to establish the circumstances of this journalist's execution-style killing and to identify those responsible. And the case must be handled at the federal level.» Ramirez had covered Acapulco for Televisa for more than a dozen years, reporting on everything from crime to hurricanes. Televisa official Luis Raul Gonzalez condemned the fatal shooting on the network's nightly broadcast, and he called on police to find the killers. The network also aired the last report Ramirez did before he was killed. The tourism segment showed the reporter interviewing tourists who packed Acapulco's beaches for Easter vacation. Ramirez's radio program on Friday criticized leftist Guerrero state Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca for refusing to give his second state-of-the-state address in front of state lawmakers. The governor instead chose to give his report in written form. Acapulco has been a plagued by a wave of drug-related violence in recent years that have included many brutal slayings of police officers. The police department has also received calls threatening to kill both police officers and journalists. The Miami-based Inter-American Press Association has reported an alarming number of journalists slain in Mexico on orders from drug gangs, with seven journalists killed since October, two disappeared and eight reporting death threats. «I would say Mexico has become the country (in the Western Hemisphere) where it's most dangerous to be a journalist today,» said Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the IAPA's press freedom commission, last month. Since taking office Dec. 1, conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 24,000 federal police and soldiers into drug strongholds across Mexico, including Acapulco, but violence continues. -- SPA
