Two unknown assailants boarded the bus in suburban San Salvador, approached 39-year-old Alfredo Hurtado and opened fire, a police spokesman told Efe.

Medical examiners found a dozen bullet wounds on the body.

“Apparently it was two young subjects who boarded the bus. It was a directed attack, because they seized on Mr. Hurtado and shot him in the head,” a police officer who supervised the removal of the body told El Mundo newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Authorities have ruled out robbery as a motive, given that the shooters did not take Hurtado’s cash or watch, media outlets said.

“The strongest theory is that it could be some kind of quarrel with someone. We believe that (Hurtado’s) working in the media could have prompted the murder,” an investigator – also speaking anonymously – told La Prensa Grafica daily.

Hurtado lived in a gang-dominated neighborhood and apparently witnessed a murder there several months ago, the newspaper said.

Just over 1,000 murders were reported in El Salvador between Jan. 1 and March 27, or an average of nearly a dozen homicides a day, which represents a 2.24 percent decline from the same period in 2010, according to police.