Days before he was found dead, the editor had written a column denouncing local corruption. Guerrero, which includes Zihuatanejo and Acapulco, has been ravaged by a battle between competing drug cartels and the police. Tamayo's newspaper reported extensively on the violence.
Three days before Tamayo's death, Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon visited Zihuatanejo to deliver a speech to a foreign trade conference. He dedicated a part of his speech to addressing fears that the wave of drug-related violence might chase away foreign investment.
Calderon, set to take the oath of office Dec. 1, promised his government would not waver in its battle against drug violence.
"It's going to take work, time and money" to win the battle, Calderon said. "And it will probably cost us human lives as well.... But there is no other alternative."
In April, hit men left two severed heads outside a Guerrero state government building in Acapulco. "So that you learn to respect," read a message scrawled on a red sheet left nearby. In October, two more heads were found on Acapulco's beach.
In Tijuana on Thursday, more than 10 heavily armed men ambushed a police vehicle on a busy thoroughfare near downtown, killing one officer in a wild shootout that left a flower vendor and a taxi driver injured.
A police commander, Hector Gaxiola Gamez, narrowly escaped the attack. But the next morning, gunmen again caught up to the commander, and this time they didn't miss. Gaxiola's body, handcuffed to that of his brother, was found in an empty lot, disfigured by more than 100 gunshot wounds.
Gaxiola was the 19th law enforcement officer to be killed this year in Tijuana. Many were slain after the August capture of alleged drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, which many experts believe has triggered a battle for control of the lucrative narcotics trade in the city.
Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon blamed the media, saying a story erroneously identifying Gaxiola as a witness in the case of the killing of another police officer had led to his death.
"Are we becoming used to this being a 'normal' day in our country?" El Universal asked in a Saturday editorial, as the paper reported on the deaths of Tamayo and Gaxiola.
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hector.tobar@latimes.com
Times staff writer Richard Marosi in Tijuana contributed to this report.
