Sheinbaum Says Murder of Cuernavaca Morena Councilman Gabriel Rivas Was Ordered

ByArturo Sánchez Jiménez and Alma E. Muñoz

This article by Arturo Sánchez Jiménez and Alma E. Muñoz originally appeared in the November 6, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. The murder of Gabriel Rivas Ríos, Morena councilman in Cuernavaca and environmental defender, was “a homicide ordered and directed against him,” President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo affirmed this Friday, who, in condemning the crime, maintained that the investigation must reach not only the material killers, but also “whoever ordered this homicide.”

At her morning press conference at the National Palace, the head of the Executive said she knew Rivas Ríos and recalled that he had recently denounced a real estate development in an area of Cuernavaca that “could have environmental problems and was not suitable to be there.” She called the crime “sad, outrageous.”

She detailed that, as soon as the homicide became known, she asked the Security Cabinet to support the Morelos prosecutor’s office in the investigations. “It was a direct homicide, some people on a motorcycle shot him directly,” she recounted. She added that she will work with Governor Margarita González Saravia to review what can be done about the project the councilman was fighting against.

Questioned about the effectiveness of the protection mechanisms for journalists and defenders of human rights and the environment, she asserted that many environmental activists have federal protection, which prevents them from reaching “a situation like this one.” However, she specified that Rivas Ríos had not requested any protection. “That does not mean we do not condemn the homicide,” she noted.

Questioned about whether there is impunity regarding the attacks on and murders of environmental defenders, she acknowledged that “there are cases that have not been solved,” although she maintained that in many others there are results. She announced that she will ask the Secretary of Governance, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, to meet with groups defending nature “to be able to see what more we can do.”

Rivas Ríos, a founder of Morena, was shot to death on Wednesday afternoon in Acapantzingo, a neighborhood in the southeast of the Morelos capital.