Amnesty International issued a message condemning the attacks, and asked the Mexican government to carry out a swift, extensive, and independent investigation. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the Mexican government to consider the cases Bermúdez Zacarías' presided over as possible motives for his murder. On 17 October 2016, the same day he was murdered, PGR offices in the State of Mexico took over the entire case. The PGR explained that this case fell under their jurisdiction because of Article 20 and other clauses of the National Code of Criminal Proceedings and Legal Protection, which grants them jurisdiction over cases which they see fit and that fall under certain legal criteria. Gilberto Higuera and Noé Rodríguez, heads of the State of Mexico's appeal system, met with State of Mexico Attorney General Alejandro Jaime Gómez Sánchez to discuss the PGR's decision. The Governor of the State of Mexico, Eruviel Ávila Villegas, confirmed to the press later that day that investigators had a video recording of the murder. He did not go into detail about the lines of investigation they were considering, but stated that the PGR and State of Mexico officials were working together. He also offered his condolences to Bermúdez Zacarías' last employers, the SCJN, and told them that the assassin in the video would be arrested. Mexico's Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEVA) offered to help the family legal advice and counseling. The murder of a federal judge and high-ranking judicial official like Bermúdez Zacarías was a rare occurrence in the ongoing Mexican Drug War (2006–present). The federal judge murdered before Bermúdez Zacarías was René Hilario Nieto Contreras, who was killed in October 2006 in Toluca, reportedly on orders from the Gulf Cartel. In 2010, federal judge Carlos Alberto Elorza Amores was attacked by suspected organized crime members in Nayarit. He survived the attack with minor injuries, but one of his bodyguards was killed in the shootout. In 2015, federal judge Joel Fernando Tinajero Jiménez was shot and injured in Jalisco. It is more common for police chiefs, journalists, priests, mayors, and local judges to suffer attacks from organized crime. The rarity of attacks against federal judges is due to the fact that many of them enjoy better protection from Mexico's judicial branches. According to data from the Council of the Federal Judiciary (CJF) (), 21 judges and magistrates had bodyguards in 2012.