| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2008 
Mexico City Police Chief Resigns Over Disco Deaths
 Miguel Angel Gutierrez - Reuters
go to original
| | In this Dec. 13, 2004 file photo, Mexico City's police chief, Joel Ortega, speaks to the press after his post was announced in Mexico City. Ortega has quit following a botched night club raid last June 20, in which 12 people died. (AP/Marco Ugarte) | | |
Mexico City - Mexico City's police chief and its top prosecutor resigned after a botched disco raid killed 12 people last month, the capital's mayor said on Tuesday, vowing a major overhaul of public security.
Police in the capital burst into the News Divine nightclub, which was packed with teen-agers celebrating the end of the school year, on June 20 in an operation to clamp down on underage drinking.
Nine youths and three officers were asphyxiated when more than 1,000 people rushed to squeeze out of the nightclub's small entrance as a wall of police pressed in from outside.
Mexicans, especially relatives of the crushed teen-agers, are furious at police video images showing the desperation of revelers trapped inside after the club's owner announced the presence of police over the loudspeaker.
After an investigation into the deaths, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said he had accepted the resignations of police chief Joel Ortega and the city's Attorney General Rodolfo Felix.
"I have accepted the resignation of the police chief because a big institutional change is required," Ebrard said. "He was not in place when the operation was going on."
"The attorney general, after knowing the content of the investigation.... has resigned to guarantee change," Ebrard told a news conference.
Guillermo Zayas, the senior police officer in charge of the raid, has been blamed for the deaths and is in jail accused of homicide. Another 18 police agents and the owner of the disco are also in prison awaiting trial.
Selling alcohol to people under 18 is illegal in Mexico and nightclubs are only allowed to operate within certain time limits. But those laws are largely ignored by bar and nightclub owners and police had sought to crack down on them.
The deaths have put pressure on Ebrard, a rising star of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, which is currently split by a leadership crisis.
(Writing by Chris Aspin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us