The judge was shot dead in his car outside the courthouse in the tourist town of Acapulco

A judge was shot and killed Wednesday in the former beach city of Mexico Acapulcolocal media and the state prosecutor’s office said.

Local media identified the slain judge as Edmundo Roman Pinzon, president of the Superior Court of Justice of Guerrero state, saying he was shot at least four times in his car outside an Acapulco courthouse.

The southern state of Guerrero is one of the areas most affected by violence linked to organized crime in Mexico, and has suffered a series of deadly attacks this year.

In October, the mayor of the state capital Chilpancingo was assassinated and beheaded a few days after taking office. Days later, four mayors asked the federal authorities protection.

Weeks later, armed clashes between suspected gang members and security forces left 19 dead in the state. Last month, a dozen dismembered bodies they were discovered in vehicles in Chilpancingo.

Acapulco, the state’s most populous city, was once a playground for the rich and famous, but has lost its luster over the past decade as foreign tourists have been scared away. bloodshed which has turned it into one of the most violent cities in the world.

On Wednesday, the the Guerrero prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the crime of qualified homicide against Edmundo N is being “investigated” in line with the usual practice of not giving names and surnames.

This Wednesday’s murder comes two days after the attackers in the state of Veracruz, on the Gulf coast shot a federal deputy. Deputy Benito Aguas Atlahua was a member of the Green Party, an ally of the ruling Morena party. Investigators have not yet publicly identified a possible motive for Monday’s killing.

The judge’s murder comes just over a week after President Claudia Sheinbaum led a meeting of the National Public Safety Council in Acapulco, attended by state governors.

Rising violence, much of it related to drug trafficking, has seen more than 450,000 people killed in Mexico since 2006, when the government launched a crackdown on organized crime.

Sheinbaum, who took office in October as Mexico’s first female president, has ruled out launching a new “war on drugs,” as the controversial program was known.

Instead, he has pledged to follow his predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs and not bullets” strategy of using social policy to address the causes of crime.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in Guerrero.

Violence in Guerrero reached such unprecedented levels that earlier this year Roman Catholic bishops announced they had helped broker a truce in another part of the state between two warring drug cartels.

In June, at least three politicians were killed in Guerrero. Acacio Floreswho represents Malinaltepec, was killed a few days later killing of Salvador Villalba Floresanother mayor of the state of Guerrero elected in the June 2 polls. At the beginning of the month, a local councilwoman he was gunned down while leaving his home in Guerrero.

His murder came just days after the mayor of a city in western Mexico and his bodyguard dead outside a gymjust hours after Sheinbaum won the presidency.