Mexico’s hosting of the 2026 FIFA World Cup was meant to showcase national pride, soccer passion, and cultural unity before a global audience. Instead, the tournament has unfolded against the backdrop of some of the country’s deepest crises: cartel violence, forced disappearances, killings of public officials and journalists, and protests by families searching for missing loved ones.
The July 7 killing of Benjamín Medrano Quezada, Mexico’s first openly gay mayor, brought those realities into even sharper focus.
Medrano, 59, was shot and killed in Guadalajara, Jalisco, after leaving an ice cream shop in the Santa Elena de la Cruz neighborhood. According to authorities, gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire multiple times, striking him in the head and face.
Medrano served as mayor of Fresnillo, Zacatecas—one of Mexico’s largest municipalities and a strategic corridor for drug trafficking—from 2013 to 2015 before later serving as a federal deputy. He made history as one of Mexico’s first openly gay mayors and was also known as a singer, businessman, and owner of a gay bar in Fresnillo.
Hellbound and Down 