MEXICO: Grenade explodes outside daily in northern Sonora state

At 7:50 p.m., a grenade exploded outside the Cambio de Sonora offices, the daily’s director Roberto Gutiérrez Torres told CPJ. The grenade caused damages to an exterior wall and broke a window, according to Mexican press reports. Gutiérrez said that no one was hurt.

Gutiérrez does not think the attack was retaliation for the daily’s reporting, but rather a threat against the entire Hermosillo press corps. He told CPJ that due to the rising violence related to drug trafficking in this northern city and the multiple attacks against its press, Cambio de Sonora does not publish investigative reports.

Local investigators found that the grenade used against the paper is identical to those used by the Mexican army. Consequently, the investigation has been taken over by federal authorities, Gutiérrez said. José Larrinaga, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Hermosillo, told local reporters that the attack appeared to be linked to organized crime.