52 dead in grenade attack on casino in Mexico
45 dead in attack on casino in northern Mexico
By PORFIRIO IBARRA RAMIREZ, Associated Press
MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Two dozen gunmen burst into a casino in northern Mexico on Thursday, doused it with gasoline and started a fire that trapped gamblers inside, killing at least 45 people and injuring a dozen more, authorities said.
The fire at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, a city that has seen a surge in drug cartel-related violence, represented one of the deadliest attacks on an entertainment center in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.
"This is a night of sadness for Mexico," federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire said in a televised address. "These unspeakable acts of terror will not go unpunished."
Calderon tweeted that the attack was "an abhorrent act of terror and barbarism" that requires "all of us to persevere in the fight against these unscrupulous criminal bands."
Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said the number late Thursday had risen to at least 45.
"But we could find more," said state Attorney General Leon Adrian de la Garza, adding that a drug cartel was apparently responsible for the attack. Cartels often extort casinos and other businesses, threatening to attack them or burn them to the ground if they refuse to pay.
State police officials quoted survivors as saying armed men burst into the casino, apparently to rob it, and began dousing the premises with fuel from tanks they brought with them. The officials were not authorized to be quoted by name for security reasons. De la Garza said the liquid appeared to be gasoline.
With shouts and profanities, the attackers told the customers and employees to get out. But many terrified customers and employees fled further inside the building, where they died trapped amid the flames and thick smoke that soon billowed out of the building.
Workers continuing to remove bodies well into the night.
Monterrey Mayor Fernando Larrazabal said many of the bodies were found inside the casino's bathrooms, where employees and customers had locked themselves to escape the gunmen.
In an act of desperation, authorities commandeered backhoes from a nearby construction site to break into the casino's walls to try to reach the people trapped inside.
Maria Tomas Navarro, 42, stood weeping at the edge of the police tape stretched in front of the smoke-stained casino building. She was hoping for word of her brother, 25-year-old Genaro Navarro Vega, who had worked in the casino's bingo area.
Navarro said she tried calling her brother's cell phone. "But he doesn't answer. I don't know what is happening," she said. "There is nobody to ask."
Larrazabal said the casino, in a well-off part of Monterrey, had been closed by authorities in May for building an expansion without a permit, but a judge later granted the owner an injunction to continue operating.
Initial reports said 11 people had been killed, but the death toll climbed as emergency personnel and firefighters searched the casino building. Medics treated survivors for smoke inhalation.
State police officials initially said witnesses reported hearing three explosions before the fire started, but later said a flammable material was used. The officials were not authorized to be quoted by name for security reasons.
The reports of explosions may have been the sound of the ignition of the liquid.
It was the second time in three months that the Casino Royale was targeted. Gunmen struck it and three other casinos on May 25, when the gunmen sprayed the Casino Royale with bullets, but no was reported injured in that attack.
Last month, gunmen killed 20 people at a bar in Monterrey. The attackers sprayed the bar with rounds from assault rifles, and police later found bags of drugs at the bar.
Monterrey has seen bloody turf battles between the Zetas and Gulf cartels in recent months. Once Mexico's symbol of development and prosperity, the city is seeing this year's drug-related murders on a pace to double last year's and triple those of the year before.
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Suspect says Mexico casino fire set over unpaid extortion
Suspect says Mexico casino fire set over unpaid extortion money
August 30, 2011
Reporting from Mexico City—
Public outrage continued to mount Monday in Mexico over last week's slaying by fire of 52 people in a popular casino as officials announced the arrest of five suspects.
At least one of the detained men confessed that the attack in Monterrey was in response to the casino owners' refusal to pay protection money, said Rodrigo Medina, governor of the state of Nuevo Leon, where the affluent northern city is located. Medina said the suspects were working for the notorious Zetas drug cartel, which has been locked in a bloody battle with rival drug traffickers for control of northeastern Mexico.
The victims, the majority of them women, were killed when gunmen torched the Casino Royale on Thursday afternoon. Authorities have given conflicting accounts on whether exits were blocked, which would have compounded the death toll.
"The attack was aimed at the casino, not the civilian population," Medina said in a news conference, suggesting that the assailants may not have intended to kill so many people.
It was the deadliest attack against Mexican civilians in nearly five years of drug warfare and has intensified pressure on the government of President Felipe Calderon to control the escalating violence, which has claimed at least 40,000 lives.
Full-page ads in newspapers Monday, one by major business organizations, demanded government action to punish culprits and pass long-delayed laws necessary to shut down traffickers and their money-laundering operations.
More than 2,000 people turned out Sunday in Monterrey to decry the casino arson and protest authorities' inability to protect citizens. Many called for the resignations of Calderon and Medina.
"This was not an isolated incident … but the straw that broke the camel's back," activist Tatiana Clouthier, one of the organizers, said Monday on Milenio TV. "Maybe this will serve as the detonator for society to say they've had enough."
Mexico has undergone a boom in casinos, some legal, some not and some allegedly used to launder drug money. The victims at the Casino Royale were mostly mothers and grandmothers who routinely enjoyed an afternoon game of bingo.
Medina, the governor, released videotape that showed suspects at a gas station where they filled jugs with the fuel allegedly used to torch the casino.
The incident was especially shocking because Monterrey, Mexico's industrial hub, was once known for its tranquillity. But it has been steadily engulfed in the same violence wrenching the rest of the country. A survey conducted in July by major business organizations and obtained by The Times showed that 90% of the city's residents feared for their safety.
Calderon, who declared three days of national mourning, pointedly used the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" to describe the attack and its perpetrators — terms he normally eschews so as not to give traffickers and their henchmen more status than that of mere criminals. The rhetorical escalation may be the president's attempt to rally a dispirited and disjointed public for support of his increasingly unpopular strategy.
"Elevating the category of the enemy helps give legitimacy to a fiercely questioned policy," columnist Roberto Zamarripa noted Monday in the Reforma newspaper. "The government can invoke unquestioning unity for a policy that is weak and erratic."
The owners of the casino have not yet appeared in public. Their attorney, Juan Gomez Jayme, told journalists over the weekend that his clients were prepared to report to authorities to answer questions, but as of Monday afternoon, that had not happened. Medina said the owners were being sought for questioning.
Gomez Jayme asserted that the casino had proper permits and that its operators had informed him the exits were not blocked. He said the owners did not plan to pay compensation to victims because the fire was not their fault.
wilkinson@latimes.com
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