Mexico mayor partied instead of protecting students

ACAPULCO, Mexico – The mayor of a Mexican city where 43 students vanished after a deadly police attack is wanted for negligence for preferring to attend a party instead of stopping his officers, authorities said on Thursday, October 9.

Guerrero state prosecutor Inaky Blanco said Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, who has gone into hiding, failed in his duty to protect the students in violence that left 6 people dead, 25 wounded, and 43 missing almost two weeks ago.

The mayor, Blanco said, was negligent “in the sense that he preferred to continue to be at a party and later have dinner and then sleep.”

Abarca “left the victims at the mercy of public security members,” he said.

The case has outraged Mexicans, who held protests across the country on Wednesday to demand the return of the students.

The students, from a teachers college, disappeared on the night of September 26 after Iguala police officers linked to a gang shot at buses that the young men had seized. They took several of the students away in patrol cars.

Fears over the students’ fate rose last week after authorities found a mass a grave up a steep hill containing 28 unidentified bodies.

Two hitmen from the Guerreros Unidos gang confessed to executing 17 of the 43 students at the same grave site, but authorities say it will take weeks to confirm the identities of the badly burned bodies. – Rappler.com