Sixty eight killed in Venezuelan police station riot and fire

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

VALENCIA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Rioting and a fire in the cells of a Venezuelan police station in the central city of Valencia killed 68 people on Wednesday, according to the government and witnesses.

Families hoping for news outside the police station were dispersed with tear gas and authorities did not give information until late into the evening.

“The State Prosecutor’s Office guarantees to deepen investigations to immediately clarify what happened in these painful events that have left dozens of Venezuelan families in mourning,” said Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab on Twitter.

Venezuelan prisons are notoriously overcrowded and filled with weapons and drugs. Riots leaving dozens dead are not uncommon.

-snip-

WORLD NEWSMARCH 28, 2018 / 10:30 PM / UPDATED 12 MINUTES AGO
Tibisay Romero
2 MIN READ


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-prison/sixty-eight-killed-in-venezuelan-police-station-riot-and-fire-idUSKBN1H508S

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Source: BBC

Carabobo fire: 68 dead in Venezuela police station cells

13 minutes ago

Rioting and a fire at a police station in the the Venezuelan city of Valencia, in Carabobo State, have left 68 people dead, government officials say.

Chief State Prosecutor Tarek Saab said an investigation into what had happened would begin immediately.

The blaze reportedly started after prisoners set fire to mattresses in an attempt to break out on Wednesday.

Police had to use tear gas to disperse relatives who surrounded the station after news of the fire broke.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43579108

[C Moon]

1. Damn, that's horrible!

[Perseus]

2. I would not put it past the Venezuelan government to have done that

Tarek William Saab is a crook, a thief, and a bunch of other things.

Those investigations never seek the truth, some poor soul will get blamed for that and the real killers will never be found. I just hope that no students were killed, many of them are in prisons for peaceful protests.

[PaulX2]

3. Maduro Had Them Executed For Rioting

I would bet everything I own.

If you don't agree, you don't know Venezuela.

[JI7]

4. rioting or protesting ?

[Igel]

5. One often blends into the other.

A sufficiently forceful protest can be construed as rioting. One on campus had the protesters knocking over trashcans and such. It created a mess. Some people who were in the way were pushed, some cars were knocked against by people, scraped by the signs, and hit by a trashcan or two; a lot of landscaping was affected. Some students were bullied as they tried to go to class, and many had hate speech hurled at them--not racist or sexist or neurotypical or heteronormal hate speech, but hate is hate. Was it rioting? The chancellor's aides decided 'no', mostly because they agreed with what the protests were about. But if it was your BMW hit by the trashcan and you disliked the rioters, you might have interpreted it as intentional and willful destruction of property and you might have sent campus police in to protect the innocents' property.

The response to an angry but mostly peaceful protest can lead to some protesters' rioting, or perhaps to having most of them riot. But once some are rioting it's easy to see them all as rioters or potential rioters. Distinctions like that get blurred across group lines.

Protests like this can even turn against themselves, as rioters riot and those who insist on remaining non-violent are construed as newfound enemies, as group lines are quickly formed inside the protesters' ranks.

We can pick our favorite scenario based on what we want to believe, but it's just an act of faith in the absence of actual evidence, an act of faith that's entirely unnecessary. My opinion, my view, my belief as to what happened in this prison is entirely unnecessary and helps no one and nobody, except for any psychological need I might have. I have none concerning this incident and like keeping the options open. Once I've committed, I'll tend to ignore disconfirming evidence.