Rockford man shot to death in front of young son at cartel-run checkpoint in Mexico, family says

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (WLS) -- A family called for justice at a Waukegan event on Sunday after they say their loved one was shot to death in Mexico last week.

On Dec. 30, Jesus Macias was traveling along a highway in the Mexican state of Zacatecas when, his family says, he failed to stop at improvised checkpoint set up not by police, but by the drug cartels.

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His omission, they said, led to him being shot and killed in front of his mother, wife and young son.

"He was a father figure to me and many of us. He taught me so much," said Lucero Rivas, the victim's niece.

Loved ones remember Macias as a hardworking man from the Rockford area who adored his family, horse racing and mowing the grass on his John Deere lawn mower.

The 62-year-old father of five was, they say, gunned down in Mexico last week while visiting his mother in Zacatecas over the holidays.

His only crime, said his niece, was failing to stop at a checkpoint set up along the highway by organized crime groups.

SEE ALSO | Chicago family shot in Mexico: 2 dead, teen in coma after being found with gunshot wounds in Durango

"They had just picked up a stove as a gift for my grandmother," said Gisselle Jimenez, the victim's niece. "They shot up the tires so he can stop, and they ended up shooting him. He ended up dying in my grandmother's arms."

Macias was among the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and Mexican nationals who travel across the border to visit family for the holidays each year.

Because of the increasing dangers faced on the roads, in recent years, the Mexican government has initiated campaigns to improve their safety, going as far as organizing mass caravans from the border to their respective home states.

"They were promised security traveling all the way to their places of origin, their pueblos," said Julie Contreras with United Giving Hope.

This latest shooting took place just three days after two Chicago-area brothers were shot and killed, and a 14-year-old was critically injured after being shot in the head along the side of a highway in the Mexican state of Durango. Macias' family says something has to change.

"He was a really good man, a hardworking man. Went and did his 9-to-5 job just like all American citizens do, and it's not fair that this is happening to him. Something needs to be done about it," Rivas said.

Macias' body is in the process of being returned to Rockford. He will be laid to rest on Wednesday.