A man has been killed during an attack on a prominent Mexican journalist that was thwarted by the columnist's bodyguard in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood.

It was not immediately clear if columnist Héctor de Mauleón was targeted Monday or if it was an attempted carjacking on a tree-lined street in the Condesa district.

Mexico's federal security agency condemned the incident, but officials have not released details on who was killed. An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw a body loaded into a forensic van.

De Mauleón is a columnist for the newspaper El Universal. He writes frequently about organized crime in the capital and has been outspoken about extortion rackets in Condesa.

In 2017, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission condemned a chilling video threat against De Mauleón.