On Sunday, José Concepción Lázaro Naranjo—an activist with the collective *Resistencia Ciudadana* (Citizen Resistance)—was assaulted while conducting a live broadcast to document a collision between a Municipal Police patrol vehicle and a private car in the Miguel Hidalgo neighborhood of Las Choapas, a municipality in southern Veracruz.
Lázaro Naranjo identified his assailant as Antonio Uribe Esquivel, brother of the mayor, Jesús Uribe Esquivel. The assault was captured on the live-stream video as the activist was recording the damage caused by the police vehicle.
Although the director of the Municipal Police, Osvaldo Sandoval Contreras, was just a few meters away, he did not intervene to stop the attack, nor did he order the arrest of the assailant.
Local reports indicate that Antonio Uribe holds no public office within the municipal government; nevertheless, police commanders and municipal officials follow his orders directly—a fact that explains the inaction of the officers on the scene.
The incident comes amid controversy regarding the mayor’s earnings. The Las Choapas municipal government refused to disclose the income received by its officials, arguing that revealing the 2026 salaries of Mayor Jesús Uribe Esquivel, the municipal trustee (*síndico*), and the council members (*regidores*) would jeopardize their “financial security.”
However, records from the National Transparency Platform (PNT) reveal that the mayor receives a gross monthly salary of 121,994 pesos (91,352 pesos net)—an amount higher than the compensation of the state governor, Rocío Nahle García, and even that of the mayors of municipalities with larger budgets, such as Veracruz and Boca del Río.
