Twenty-five people have been killed and about a dozen injured in an attack on a bar in the Mexican city of Coatzacoalcos, apparently overseen by a man who had been recently arrested but released.
“The criminals went in, closed the doors, the emergency exits, and set fire to the place,” said Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president of Mexico, at his daily morning news conference.
Prosecutors initially said the fire killed eight women and 15 men and injured 13 people. López Obrador said the death toll had risen to 25, but did not specify the gender of the victims or the number of injured. There was no immediate information on their condition.
Veracruz state police said the Tuesday night attack targeted the Bar Caballo Blanco, though the bar’s name was in English on a sign outside: “The White Horse Nightclub.”
It advertised “quality, security and service,” private rooms for $7.50 “all night,” ‘‘sexy girls” and a pole dance contest.
Photos of the scene showed tables and chairs jumbled around, with the bodies of women lying amid the debris.
“This is the most inhuman thing possible,” López Obrador said. “It is regrettable that organized crime acts in this manner. It is more regrettable that there may be collusion with authorities.”
López Obrador said local prosecutors should be investigated because “the alleged perpetrators had been arrested, but they were freed”.
Governor Cuitláhuac García identified the chief suspect as a man known as “La Loca” and gave his name as Ricardo “N’’ because officials no longer give the full names of suspects.
García said the man had been detained in July, but was released after being turned over to the state prosecutor’s office.
“In Veracruz, criminal gangs are no longer tolerated,” García wrote of the attack, adding that police, the armed forces and newly formed National Guard are searching for the attackers.
The attack came almost eight years to the day after a fire at a casino in the northern city of Monterrey killed 52 people. The Zetas drug cartel staged that 2011 attack to enforce demands for protection payments.
The Zetas, now splintered, have also been active in Coatzacoalcos.
The latest attack, along with the killing of 19 people in the western city of Uruapan earlier this month, is likely to renew fears that the public, theatrical violence of the 2006-2012 drug war has returned.
