At least 40 killed by gunmen setting fire in casino in Monterrey, Mexico
The AP reports:
MONTERREY, Mexico—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 40 people and injuring a dozen more, authorities said.
… Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Leon Adrian de la Garza … said 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…. 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….
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.
Evidently the criminals were not intending to commit mass murder, but only to burn the casino. They told the customers and employees to get out. But the criminals were so stupid and reckless that they didn’t clearly tell the customers and employees that they were about to set the casino on fire. If they had, the victims would have left the building as told. Naturally the victims expected gunshots, and for protection fled into interior rooms and restrooms, where they died from the fire.
I guess we could call it a terrorist arson gone wrong.
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Paul M. writes:
You wrote:
“I guess we could call it a terrorist arson gone wrong.”
Yes, those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That makes it a tragedy.
Kristor writes:
It was a random terrorist arson gone wrong; that’s what makes it so tragic, and mysterious.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 26, 2011 07:52 AM | Send