Police Accused Over 12 Deaths in Club Raid

Police have been accused of brutality and incompetence after 12 people, including three officers and a 13-year-old girl, were crushed to death inside a Mexico City nightclub during an operation against underage drinking and drug use.

An initial investigation by the city prosecution service also highlights unsafe conditions in the News Divine disco, which had blocked emergency exits and was overcrowded with 600 youths, mostly teenagers from local secondary schools.

Videos show the club's owner announcing the police operation and asking clients to leave. Riot police are seen allowing a single file of teenagers out of the narrow front door, and directing them to a bus waiting to take them to the station.

Photographs taken later show a scrum of officers pushing up against the door from the street, fulfilling orders to halt the evacuation until more buses arrived. Footage from inside the club reveals the panicked faces of the compressed crowd. "The police not only tried to prevent the youths from leaving, it was evident they were trying to push them back inside," a city prosecutor, Rodolfo Félix Cárdenas, said. "It created an accordion effect, which is what caused the deaths."

Survivors have also accused the police of neglecting the injured lying on the pavement outside the club, which is in a working class neighborhood of the capital. Several say they were beaten and sexually harassed by officers. Seventeen officers have been suspended, and murder prosecutions could follow.