Gangs in Guatemala stage prison riots to demand the return of 10 leaders moved to other prisons
Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez told The Associated Press that the gang members are holding at least six guards — one of whom was shot — hostage in two prisons in Guatemala City.
According to Jiménez, the rioters were demanding Guatemalan authorities return their leaders from the prison where they were transferred, Renovación I, to the prisons where they were able to lead the gangs and 'exercised criminal power.'
'The Guatemalan state will not bow down to you,' Jiménez posted on his official social media account.
The transfer of the gang leaders took place just over a month after the massacre of seven people at a funeral home while they were mourning another alleged gang member. Authorities have blamed the gangs for recent violence in the country, which Jiménez said was fueled by ongoing conflict between the rival groups.
Jiménez assured that the government will not give in to the gang members' threats and that they will continue to have 'no privileges, no concessions. ... The security and peace of Guatemalans is far above any threat from these criminals,' he said.
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Associated Press
15 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Gang members release 11 guards held hostage in Guatemalan prisons
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Gang members released 11 guards overnight who they had held hostage for most of a day in two Guatemalan prisons, demanding that authorities move their imprisoned leaders to other facilities. Deputy Security Minister José Portillo confirmed the guards' release shortly before midnight Tuesday, but didn't provide any details. It remained unclear on Wednesday what, if any, concessions the government made to win their release. Authorities had retaken control of both prisons. Riots had broken out early Tuesday in two prisons in Guatemala City, where the guards were captured by members of the rival Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs. A guard and an inmate who suffered bullet wounds in the melee were evacuated during the course of the day to receive medical treatment. Videos circulated online by the prisoners showed the guards blindfolded with their hands bound. In one, a prisoner read a statement saying the gangs wanted their leaders returned to the prisons where they were previously housed, something Guatemala's interior minister had earlier ruled out.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Congress seized control of D.C. police before. The results were disastrous.
In 1989, before the new millennium brought economic rebirth to the nation's capital, large swaths of Washington actually resembled the hellish crimescape that President Donald Trump contends the city has become today. The crack epidemic was raging. Gangs of drug dealers engaged in murderous competition. The annual homicide toll nearly surpassed 500, nearly five times last year's total, at a time when the city had about 100,000 fewer residents. The poverty-riven city was mired in fiscal and social chaos — and on the cusp of bankruptcy. The rampant 'bloodshed, bedlam and squalor' that Trump conjured to describe the city this week was a stark reality. Back then, in a now largely forgotten intervention in the annals of on-again, off-again federal control of the nation's capital, it wasn't the White House that led the effort, as Trump did Monday. It was Congress. And the results were disastrous. Just a few years later, Congress intervened again with much better results — establishing a financial control board that helped turn around the city's dire finances. Today, criminal laws relaxed following the murder of George Floyd and the aftermath of a post-pandemic crime spike have again made D.C. a federal target. But as National Guard troops began to deploy onto city streets, little else was known about exactly how federal officials plan to improve the conditions they complain about. 'There are a myriad of ways the federal government can be partners in supporting our safety,' said D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), arguing that Congress has failed to fully fund policing efforts and that a backlog of judicial appointments, which would help speed up prosecutions, remains unaddressed. 'Sending hundreds of troops into our neighborhoods without context or training does not get us there.' Back in 1989, one of the first directives lawmakers on Capitol Hill issued to then-Mayor Marion Barry (D) was to hire 1,800 new police officers for a force then numbering about 3,600. Otherwise, Congress would withhold $430 million in federal funds that year — and again the next. Barry's administration had about 20 months to comply. As a series of stories in The Washington Post later revealed, the hiring binge was marked by drastic corner-cutting in proper recruitment, background checks and training, and it led to an influx of men and women who were not qualified to wear badges or carry guns. At least one received his acceptance letter while he was locked up on drug charges. Another's mailing address turned out to be St. Elizabeths Hospital, the city's secure psychiatric facility. By 1994, graduates of D.C. police academy classes in 1989 and 1990 comprised roughly a third of the force. Yet they made up about half of all officers charged with crimes since 1989, from shoplifting to murder, and more than half of those accused by the department of insubordination, neglect of duty and making false statements. Prosecutors at the time kept a list of D.C. officers so tainted by wrongdoing that they could not be called to testify in court. Half of the 189 officers on that roster were 1989 or 1990 academy graduates. The FBI was so worried about growing criminal behavior in the Metropolitan Police Department that it launched an elaborate, months-long sting operation in which D.C. officers were recruited to act as armed guards for what they thought were wholesale drug shipments passing through the District. When the undercover effort, dubbed 'Operation Broken Faith,' ended in December 1993, agents arrested 12 officers — all young, unseasoned and ill-trained — who had pocketed $75,800 in payoffs, mostly for escorting a purported 135 kilograms of cocaine. 'The Dirty Dozen,' they came to be called. But the corruption crisis was swamped by a broader citywide breakdown. Two decades after the Home Rule Act of 1973 gave Washington residents the right to elect their own mayor for the first time since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, the city in 1995 reached another crossroads: It was broke. Burdened by poor financial management and an eroding tax base, the city had racked up a $722 million deficit and was unable to deliver basic services. Congress again stepped in, formally taking over the city as it faced insolvency, imposing a federal control board that effectively ran the city for six years before restoring local autonomy. This wider takeover had better — and longer-lasting — results. A Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton agreed on a reform plan that left in place an elected mayor and council but added a chief financial officer approved by the control board who would later be elected mayor: Anthony A. Williams. It also included structural changes that led to a balanced budget, tax incentives to draw new residents and businesses and federalizing state-like functions including the courts and prison operation. The city's economic rebirth coincided with a two-decade-long drop in crime from the 1991 peak that mirrored nationwide crime trends. The changes came with some drawbacks. Closing the District's notorious prison in Lorton, Virginia, and sending inmates into the Federal Bureau of Prisons meant better detention conditions and access to services, but at the price of contact with family and community. But the District's public safety reputation improved to the point that the capital's U.S. attorney at the time of the takeover — Eric H. Holder Jr. — went on to serve as U.S. attorney general from 2009 to 2015. Peter Newsham, D.C. police chief from January 2017 to January 2021, said the tide changed again at the end of his tenure, when anti-police sentiment grew following the murder in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in May 2020. The D.C. Council dealt a 'devastating blow' by cutting proposed funding for police staffing. He estimated that the force has shrunk since then from 3,800 sworn officers to about 3,200, reaching a half-century low, as officers have left faster than they can be replaced. At the same time, D.C. prosecutors appointed by presidents of both parties complained that appeals court judges and D.C. Council members were interpreting existing laws or enacting new ones to be more defendant-friendly. All of it set the stage for Trump's announcement Monday, Newsham said. 'I don't think you can understate' the impact of those events, said Newsham, who is now chief of police for Prince William County, Virginia. 'Everybody knows there are some neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., that are really plagued with violent crime. And the council essentially in 2020 defunded the agency by reducing its staffing.' This week, Democratic lawmakers including the District's nonvoting member of Congress, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) have condemned Trump's moves as an authoritarian power grab that illustrates the injustice of denying statehood — and autonomy — to the District. 'If Trump actually cared about the people of D.C. and their safety, he wouldn't have blocked the local government from spending over $1 billion of its own money to fund its own police department, schools and more,' Van Hollen said. Federal governance of the capital has evolved with the political times. Chartered shortly after the creation of the District of Columbia, the city of Washington in 1802 had its own mayors through 1871. They were appointed until 1820 and elected until 1871, when the office of mayor was abolished and the executive became a territorial governor appointed by the president. Federally appointed governors or commissioners oversaw the District until 1974, when Congress enabled a locally elected mayor and council under the D.C. Home Rule Act — but stopped short of stripping itself of oversight authority. That remains relevant in the current moment. While the president has emergency authority to deploy the National Guard in the District, lasting change in crime control requires action from Congress, which has authority over D.C. laws. That includes authority over the city budget, including the deployment of police and resources, the power to confirm judges to the severely shorthanded and backlogged D.C. Superior Court, which oversees criminal prosecutions of violations of D.C. statutes, and oversight of D.C. criminal and juvenile justice laws, which some critics view as too soft. Some want to see action on all fronts — confirming more judges and using funds as a lever to push for a crackdown on crime. The District has a curfew law for kids 17 and younger, which runs from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. But federal prosecutors want to go further. New U.S. attorney, former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, has called for the D.C. Council to overturn legislation reducing sentences for young offenders. Separately, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has proposed taking away some of D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb's authority over prosecuting juvenile offenders and limiting his office's discretion over when to bring charges. Meagan Flynn, Jenny Gathright and Olivia George contributed to this report.
Bloomberg
6 hours ago
- Bloomberg
The US-China Fight Over Panama's Canal Has an Unexpected Winner
Thanks to its raised geopolitical profile, the Central American nation has a chance to leverage its strategic location, woo investors and revamp its economic model.
