Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz

Jiménez worked as a photographer for twenty years and became a journalist just five years before his murder. He worked as the police and crime reporter for the news agency Notisur and as a correspondent for the daily newspaper El Liberal del Sur and for other newspapers in the town of Villa de Allende. He reported on such topics as local abductions and violence toward migrants, and for security reasons sometimes used the pseudonym "The Panther." He investigated the disappearances of people in Coatzacoalcos and kidnappings in Villa Allende. In his last few months, he reported on alleged crimes at El Palmar, a bar in Coatzacoalcos owned by Teresa Hernández Cruz, including the kidnapping of Ernesto Ruiz Guillen, committed on January 18, 2014.

On February 5, 2014, Jiménez was abducted from his home in the Villa Allende district of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, by a group of masked men. He had just returned home after taking his children to school. His kidnappers forced him to get into their car and drove off. According to Jiménez's family, when the kidnappers came for him, they identified him by saying: "This is the photographer."

On February 11, 2014, six days after he disappeared, Jiménez' body was found in a shallow grave in a "safe house" in Las Choapas, Veracruz. Also found in the grave were the remains of his friend Ernesto Ruiz Guillen, a local union leader, and of an unidentified taxi driver. Jiménez had written about Ruiz Guillen's outspoken criticism of organized crime, and had also worked as a photographer at union events under Ruiz Guillen's direction. Ruiz Guillen had disappeared before Jiménez's own abduction, and Jiménez had written about his disappearance.

On May 3, 2014, World Press Freedom Day, the campaign FotoXGoyo auctioned several photographs donated by various photojournalists to benefit his family. The auction featured works by such prominent Mexican photographers as Elsa Medina, José Luis Cuevas, Marco Cruz, Pedro Valtierra, and Ricardo Garibay, as well as such foreign photojournalists as Tomás Munita and Eduardo Verdugo. The auction's organizing committee noted that he earned less than two dollars a day to support his family with five children at home, and that upon his death his family had no financial support. The photographs were exhibited at the photography school Gimnasio de Arte in Mexico City. The auction was supported by such national and international organizations as Periodistas de a Pie, Casa de los Periodistas, Prensa No Disparen, Article 19, Reporters Without Borders, and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

In response to the authorities' comments about the motive, Amnesty International (AI) and Article 19 demanded that they take into account Jiménez's journalism as a possible motive. The Delegation of the European Union in Mexico condemned the murder and called on the authorities to clarify the facts and prosecute those responsible. Reporters Without Borders lamented the death of Jiménez. The organization has called on state authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice, and also consider the possibility that the motive for his killing was related to his journalistic work. Four journalists are presently missing in Veracruz, with nine having been killed there between 2010 and 2014, making it one of the deadliest regions for journalists in the world.

Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz (1972 – February 2014) was a Mexican journalist and photographer. He was murdered in February 2014 in Veracruz, which has been described as the most dangerous state for journalists in Mexico. He was at least the tenth journalist killed in Veracruz since Javier Duarte became governor 38 months earlier. At the time of Jiménez's murder, four additional journalists were missing in the state.