Bradley Will was killed after gunmen opened fire at barricades erected in the municipality of Santa Lucía del Camino, about 10 miles outside the state capital, by members of the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO), the coalition of activist organizations that has led a crippling five-month protest in the state.

Will worked for IndyMedia, an independent news website. Also injured in the same incident was a journalist from the daily newspaper Milenio.

In Oaxaca City, an outburst of gunfire near the state attorney general´s office left at least three women and two men injured. There were reports Friday evening of several other gunfire episodes in the city.

None of the shooters were identified or arrested Friday evening. But the federal Attorney General´s Office said its special division in charge of crimes against journalists will investigate Friday´s events.

APPO spokespersons were quick to blame Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz for the violence, calling the shootings the latest instances of violent acts carried out by clandestine operatives. At least 10 APPO members have been killed since the unrest began in June, with no suspects arrested.

"Now they´re going after our barricades," said APPO spokes- person Antonio García Sánchez.

APPO and teachers in the Oaxaca branch of the national teachers union have demanded Ruiz´s ouster since June, when the governor used state troops to try to break a teachers strike.

APPO leaders had called a "maximum alert" Friday morning after a declaration by spokesman Florentino López that one of the organization´s members had been kidnapped by gun-wielding assailants in a part of the city known as Puente de Cinco Señores.

Another APPO spokesperson said Friday that the body of a teacher had been found about a mile outside Oaxaca City on the highway to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Whether the teacher was another victim of violence was yet to be confirmed Friday evening.

In Mexico City, several hundred angry Oaxacans marched early in the evening from the APPO encampment near the Senate building to stage a demonstration outside the Interior Secretariat. The demonstrators shouted "Ulises, murderer" as many of them stood on a toppled metal fence meant to keep them away from the government building. Several dozen municipal riot police with shields formed a line in front of the protesters, with as many federal officers backing them up.

Inside the building, Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal was meeting with union leader Enrique Rueda to discuss the conditions for a return to work by the teachers that could take place as early as Monday.

Rueda and the teachers will continue their talks Saturday.

Friday had promised to be a day of tension in Oaxaca City, with APPO calling for a boycott of businesses, the building of new barricades if Ruiz had not resigned by then.

The boycott soon turned in to mass forced closures of downtown businesses, with the entrances to chain restaurants blocked and in some cases customers forceibly evacuated by APPO.

Later in the day, the APPO protesters armed themselves with rocks, sticks, machetes, homemade rockets and Molotov cocktails in response to the series of shootings.