A riot and a fire at a prison near Monterrey in northern Mexico have left 52 inmates dead.
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Fighting broke out overnight in two areas of the Topo Chico prison between a faction of the brutal Zetas gang and another group, Nuevo Leon state Governor Jaime Rodriguez said.
Leslie Solis, a security and justice investigator at Mexico Analua, a public policy think tank, said that the Mexican ombudsmen had stated in the past that the Topo Chico prison lacked prison guards and its management ability was too poor to maintain security.
The 60-year-old prison houses 3,800 inmates, twice its capacity.
Prison director Gregoria Salazar told relatives that fighting had broken out in two areas of the prison, though the areas holding women and elderly inmates were calm. Local news outlets showed video of flames rising from the Topo Chico prison…
Some families of prisoners rushed to the scene for more information, but police cordoned off the streets near the prison.
“They said that until there is order they won’t let us in”. He has been mentioned in local media as a suspect in the murder of the U.S. Citizen David Hartley in 2010.
“We are living a tragedy”, Rodriguez said, “The incident is painful and regrettable”.
BBC News points out that the Mexico prison riot may have also been the result of overcrowding, with some prisoners sleeping in corridors outside the cells.
“They know how to calm the authorities down by doing things that are pleasing to the authorities”, Father Coogan said, pointing to the way inmate leaders will keep prisons with self-rule clean, maintained and orderly as a way to keep wardens on their side. Another 12 people were injured.
– No inmates escaped during the riot. The riot reportedly was triggered by an attempted prison break by inmates belonging to the Los Zetas drug cartel, as one group of prisoners set a fire to distract the guards while other inmates tried to flee.
Santiago was sent to the Topo Chico prison in September for missing a parole appointment. In February 2012, 44 prisoners died in the prison of Apodaca in a fight between two rival gangs.
Even the country’s top maximum-security prison, the Altiplano near Mexico City, was exposed for weaknesses when drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped through a tunnel in July. He was recaptured in January.
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President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration vowed to reform the penitentiary system following Guzman’s escape past year.
