Six inmates killed at in prison riot near U.S.-Mexican border
MEXICO CITY - Six inmates were killed and 10 others were injured Tuesday as authorities called in special agents to put down a riot at a prison along the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said.
The riot erupted shortly after dawn at the 1,942-inmate Cereso Nogales II prison in the Mexican city of Nogales, just across the border from its smaller twin city of Nogales, Ariz.
As officials conducted roll call in the prison's solitary confinement wing, "a small collection" of inmates used knives made from kitchen utensils to overpower four guards, said Leopoldo Guzman, a spokesman for the government of northern Sonora state.
As prison authorities rushed to the isolated wing, the inmates who began the uprising opened the cells of more than 120 other prisoners who used knives and clubs made from bed posts and sink pipes to beat back guards, Guzman said.
Officials tried to negotiate the release of the captured guards, then called in special state police agents. They stormed the prison and fought through barricades of furniture and debris erected around the solitary confinement wing by the rioting inmates, Sonora's Interior Minister Oscar Lopez said in a statement released Tuesday night.
After a five-hour standoff, agents were able to regain control of the prison without firing their guns, the statement said. The official report disagreed with accounts by local television and newspaper reporters who said they heard shots upon arriving outside the prison.
In a press conference late Tuesday, Lopez said six inmates were fatally stabbed by fellow prisoners wielding homemade knives. 10 other prisoners were injured in fighting among rioting inmates, he said.
"Not one inmate was injured by agents of the state police," and no prison official was seriously injured, Lopez said.
Mexican and Arizona television reports Tuesday night put the number killed as high as 10 and said that as many as 50 other inmates and guards may have been injured.
Condit exploring re-election
LOS ANGELES - Rep. Gary Condit considers re-election "a real possibility," despite the furor over his relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy, a campaign consultant said.
Condit began collecting petition signatures this week, campaign consultant Richard Ross told the Los Angeles Times in yesterday's editions.
Condit aides in Washington and California did not return calls by The Associated Press.
Condit has never said publicly whether he plans to run for re-election but Ross said he expects a full campaign, including public appearances, to get under way next month.
California law allows major party congressional candidates to qualify for the ballot either by paying $1,451 or obtaining the signatures of 3,000 registered voters.
Condit was considered to have a lock on re-election until his relationship with Levy surfaced. The 24-year-old woman from Condit's district vanished May 1 from her Washington apartment. Condit, 53, is not considered a suspect in her disappearance. He has acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Levy, according to a police source.
Condit has been abandoned by some leading Democrats, including House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and California Gov. Gray Davis, his longtime friend and political ally. Several California newspapers have called for his resignation.
Pima County settles with Hell's Angels for $75,000
TUCSON - Pima County Supervisors agreed on Tuesday to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by three members of a motorcycle gang who claimed they were harassed by sheriff's deputies.
The three men, who belong to the Mesa chapter of the Hell's Angels, claimed deputies violated their constitutional rights during an automobile traffic stop in September 1999 at Tucson.
The incident occurred after a deputy spotted the three men - all wearing clothing with gang insignias - at a convenience store near Interstate 10. The deputy called for backup, saying he didn't have a reason to stop the men but suspected they had committed a crime or were about to do so because they appeared nervous.
The deputies pulled over their car after the driver, 35-year-old Gary Dunham, failed to use a turn signal.
Deputies confiscated two handguns and a pocketknife from Dunham, who held a concealed weapons permit. They handcuffed Dunham, put the other two men in separate sheriff's vehicles and searched the car.
The men also were detained for two hours while deputies summoned canine units and photographed pages in Dunham's address book that identified his fellow gang members.
Another problem centered on discovery of a shotgun in the car's trunk.
Dunham's attorney, Vincent Frey, said that "from my clients' standpoint, this wasn't about the money. They'd never been through an ordeal like this. It was important for them to stand up for their civil rights."
Frey said the men live middle-class lives nothing like Hollywood accounts of motorcycle gangsters.
