Mexican journalist Jorge Miguel Armenta Ávalos was murdered in Sonora

State officials in northern Mexico say gunmen killed the owner of a newspaper and one of the policemen who had been assigned to protect him following earlier threats.

said Jorge Miguel Armenta Ávalos was attacked while leaving a restaurant Saturday afternoon in downtown Ciudad Obregón . Municipal police officer Orlando Antonio Ruvalcaba Flores was also killed and a fellow officer was wounded.

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Armenta was the director of Medios Obson , Semanario Última Palabra , and El Tiempo , which publish both in print and online. Medios Obson is a digital media outlet with over 240,000 followers.

State prosecutor Claudia Indira Contreras

vowed to pursue all possible angles but there were apparently no suspects.

Armenta is at least the third journalist slain in Mexico this year. More than 140 have been killed over the past 20 years .

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“We can’t speculate about the motives for which the businessman Jorge Armenta Ávalos was killed. What we can say is that we’re dealing with one more journalist who is killed in broad daylight and in a rising atmosphere of violence,” said Rafael Caro Franco , president of the National Forum of Journalists and Communicators .

Armenta Ávalos

was murdered when he was leaving a restaurant where he had met public security officers from Sonora. The events took place on May 16 at 15:00 in downtown Ciudad Obregón.

The businessman and radio and TV producer, as well as his team, had already received death threats , so he drove an armored car and had bodyguards.

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