Cops Charged In Mexico Stampede Deaths

A top police official disobeyed orders by detaining youths during a botched nightclub raid in which 12 people died and others were stripped or photographed, Mexico City prosecutors said Monday.

Prosecutor Rodolfo Felix Cardenas said in a report that patrons at the club, most of them minors, should not have been rounded up and held for hours without charge.

"They were not suspects. They were victims, and as such, nothing justified their detention," Felix said.

Thirty-nine police and borough officials, as well as the club's owner, have been charged in the case. The precinct police chief who led the raid, Guillermo Zayas, faces 12 counts of homicide.

Felix said Zayas disobeyed direct orders from a superior to merely search club patrons, then let them go. He did not name the official who gave the order.

Police were looking for drug and alcohol violations in the June 20 raid on the News Divine nightclub in northeastern Mexico City.

Officers blocked the club's lone working exit, creating a deadly stampede in which nine patrons and three police were asphyxiated or crushed to death in the rush to get out.

Zayas' attorney has argued his client did everything he could to open the exits.

Felix reported that the raid was marred by mistakes, a lack of planning and an abusive attitude toward the youths, who reported being insulted, beaten and held for hours.

Some said they were told to strip for a medical exam and some were photographed. Some said authorities wrote numbers on the backs of their hands to identify them.

Felix said police had no justifiable reason for such actions.

The club's owner faces charges of involuntary homicide for allegedly overcrowding the club and blocking emergency exits. He also is charged with corruption of minors for allegedly allowing youths to drink.

Club employees claim that while underage patrons were among the crowd, only people over 18 were allowed to buy alcohol.

The city government announced Monday it was expropriating the club and would turn the premises into a youth center.