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COATZACOALCOS, Mexico (AP) — An attack on a bar in Mexico's Gulf coast city of Coatzacoalcos killed 26 people and wounded about a dozen, officials said Wednesday, and they said it was apparently overseen by a man who had been recently arrested but released.
"The criminals went in, closed the doors, the emergency exits, and set fire to the place," President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily morning news conference.
Veracruz state police said the Tuesday night attack targeted the "Bar Caballo Blanco," or "White Horse Bar." It advertised "quality, security and service," private rooms for $7.50 "all night," ''sexy girls" and a pole dance contest.
It is located just off a busy commercial street in Coatzacoalcos, a city whose main industry has long been oil and oil refining.
On Wednesday afternoon, relatives of the victims gathered anxiously outside state prosecutors' offices with photos that could be used to identify their loved ones.
Those who had confirmation sat weeping in plastic chairs.
Vanessa Galindo Blas, 32, said her husband died in the fire. She sat shouting: "He didn't deserve this. Why did they do this to me? I don't to be here. I want to be with you."
She said her 29-year-old husband, Erick Hernández Galindo, worked as the DJ in the bar and left behind three children.
Among the dead were two Filipino sailors. Ramón Guzman, the agent for the ship Caribe Lisa, brought the passports for the two men who were on leave and had been unaccounted for.
"This is the most inhuman thing possible," López Obrador said.
"It is regrettable that organized crime acts in this manner," he said, adding, "It is more regrettable that there may be collusion with authorities."
López Obrador said local prosecutors should be investigated because "the alleged perpetrators had been arrested, but they were freed."
Gov. Cuitláhuac García identified the chief suspect as a man known as "La Loca" and gave his name as Ricardo "N'' because officials no longer give the full names of suspects.
García said the man had been detained by marines in July, but was released after being turned over to the state prosecutor's office.
"In Veracruz, criminal gangs are no longer tolerated," García wrote of the attack, adding that police, the armed forces and newly formed National Guard are searching for the attackers.
In an interview with Milenio TV, García said that 23 people had died in the bar and three more had succumbed to their injuries afterward. He said some of the remaining injured were in "very serious" condition and he left open the possibility that the toll could rise.
"It was a planned, cunning attack against that bar and the people who were inside," he said.
