Disturbing video footage showed the moment a journalist running for mayor was murdered by a masked man in Brazil.
Thiago Rodrigues, 34, was attending a party in the city of Guarujá in São Paulo on Thursday when he received a call to go outside, Brazilian outlet G1 reported.
Rodrigues could be seen talking on his cell phone when the suspect approached on a bicycle and fired several shots.
The aspiring politician ran off and fell to the ground next to a car before the gunman chased him, stood over him and shot him.
Rodrigues was shot a total of nine times and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Thiago Rodrigues, a journalist running for mayor, was murdered on Thursday in Guarujá, a city in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paulo. His killer is still on the run as of Friday evening
A surveillance camera captured the moment a gunman (left) approached Thiago Rodrigues (right) and shot him dead in the southeastern Brazilian city of Guarujá on Thursday
The perpetrator fled on a bicycle and has been on the run since Friday evening.
Rodrigues, who called himself the “people’s reporter,” founded his own digital news site, A Pérola Guarujá, and wrote about politics for the outlet.
A 2021 investigative report on irregularities within the public health sector led to the arrest of Válter Suman, the mayor of Guarujá, and Válter Suman, the Minister of Education.
“It is necessary to streamline the public sector and cut unnecessary expenditure to invest in works that will improve people’s lives,” he wrote.
‘It is necessary to cut back on benefits and reduce the number of orders. The outsourcing and cartel of companies that have established themselves in Guarujá to make public money must end.”
Thiago Rodrigues revealed in August that he was entering the 2024 Guarujá mayoral race
The gunman initially chased Thiago Rodrigues, who stumbled before the gunman stood over him and shot him dead
Rodrigues announced in a Facebook post on August 26 that he is running for mayor.
At the time, he shared that the 2021 bomb report made him the target of death threats, forcing him to leave Brazil for several months because federal police could not provide protection.
Rodrigues revealed that running for the mayoral seat of Guarujá was an idea first mooted fifteen years ago during his blogs about the administration of former mayor Antonieta de Brito.
While those around him suggested he was better prepared to run for a seat on the Guarujá City Council, Rodrigues said his goal was focused on winning the 2024 mayoral race because he believed he could make a difference .
As a councilor, he understood that he would not be given the authority to “implement” his agenda.
“Being mayor is making things happen, wanting to do and being able to do things, being able to improve people’s lives, you have the pen in your hand to really change,” wrote Rodrigues, affiliated with the Sustainability Network, an environmental party. “Guarujá made a big mistake in choosing the last mayors.”
“Today our city suffers from so much corruption that it lacks security, healthcare, education, decent homes for those in need, and we have several other problems that need to be seriously addressed. It takes courage to change Guarujá!’
