Second Tijuana prison riot quelled with death toll of 19

SOLDIERS and federal police have regained control of Tijuana’s infamous La Mesa State Penitentiary after a second riot in three days left 19 people dead and 12 injured, officials said yesterday.

Relatives of inmates say they rioted because they were not given food or water since the previous riot on Sunday, which led to the deaths of three inmates. Authorities blamed warring gangs, but said prison officials are suspected of being involved in the second melee and three top officials were suspended by the governor pending an inquiry.

“We are investigating all of the officials at La Mesa penitentiary who could have been responsible or have been in cohort with some of the inmates,” said Daniel de la Rosa, Baja California’s Public Safety Secretary.

He told Mexico’s Televisa network that 200 inmates would be transferred to other state prisons to avoid more violence.

It was not immediately known whether prison guards or police were among the dead, and De la Rosa did not say how prison officials were allegedly involved.

Baja California governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna said he has suspended La Mesa’s warden, Carlos Arturo Gonzales; the director overseeing state prisons, Miguel Angel Canett; and deputy secretary of the state’s penitentiary system Simona Camino.

Just across the US border from San Diego, the prison has long been held up as the quintessential example of what’s wrong with Mexico’s corrupt, overcrowded prison system.

La Mesa prisoners gained worldwide notoriety after they built and ran their own city inside the penitentiary’s courtyard. Inmates bought and sold town homes, ran shops, hired prostitutes and drug gangs ruled the village before police bulldozed it in 2002 under former president Vicente Fox.