The governor of
Nuevo León mentioned that 30 inmates, reportedly from the criminal group
Los Zetas, escaped from the prison with the "complicity of the prison authorities," and that 18 prison guards were being investigated on 20 February 2012. Nine of them confessed to have helped the prisoners escape, but 19 have been found guilty as of 21 February 2012. An investigation continues as to why the prison cells were opened, allowing the riot between the rival drug gangs. Mexican prisons have been notorious for being overpopulated, lacking adequate supervisors, and failing to meet prisoners' needs or prevent them from reoffending after release. Of the 44 killed, 35 have been identified.
Rodrigo Medina is offering more than 10 million Mexican pesos (almost $800,000 U.S. dollars) for information leading to the arrest of the fugitives that escaped in the mass jailbreak. During the prison riot, over 300 family members arrived at the scene. The families then demanded the authorities to hand in the bodies of their loved ones. Other family members, nonetheless, confronted the police forces after failing to obtain information of what had occurred. The
National Human Rights Commission reported that 25 minors were in the prison during the deadly riot. The mayor of
García, Nuevo León, Jaime Rodríguez, worries that the escape of Oscar Manuel Bernal Soriano alias
La Araña (The Spider), a high-ranking
Los Zetas leader, might bring reprisals from him and the cartel. On 21 February 2012 the United Nations asked for the Mexican authorities to work "exhaustively and independently" to find those responsible for the massacre. In addition, they condemned the massacre and asked for the
National Human Rights Commission to "monitor conditions of detention throughout Mexico." Moreover,
Egidio Torre Cantú, the governor of the neighboring state of
Tamaulipas, has agreed to search for the fugitives of the prison break in his state, too. As a result of the "crisis" in the prison systems of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, the president of Mexico,
Felipe Calderón, promised to begin a project to create 8 to 10 prisons by the end of his term, and reiterated that this project forms part of his "security strategy" to prevent Mexico from falling in the hands of the organized crime groups. That effort, he mentioned, has "never been done in the past 20 years in Mexico."
Alejandro Poiré Romero, moreover, mentioned that there will be no more federal inmates in state prisons by the end of 2012, and recognized that that was one of the many "weaknesses" of the Mexican prison systems. On 24 February 2012 Jaime Castañeda Bravo, the Secretary of Public Security in
Nuevo León was removed from office by the state government. Concrete walls were later installed around the prison in Apodaca to "elevate the security measures" of the area. In addition, the police forces of the city of
Apodaca recruited former Mexican military officers to form part of their body. The state government of Nuevo León asked the
Federal government of Mexico to take control of the prison in Apodaca on 24 February 2012, the same day 10 prisoners were found guilty of the massacre. Although the events are not related, in the prison of
Topo Chico, just north of
Monterrey, 3 inmates were killed two days after the massacre in Apodaca.
Protests and later riots On 21 February 2012 the families of the inmates and the deceased prisoners protested and confronted the police forces outside the prison in
Apodaca. In the heat of the moment, the families burned objects and threw rocks at the authorities. Inside the prison, riots continued after several inmates were being transported from the prison in
Nuevo León to other prisons out-of-state. The
Mexican military and the Fuerza Civil police forces guarded the area.
Anonymous' operation During the disturbances outside the prison, the hacker group
Anonymous blocked the official page of the municipality of
Apodaca as a "protest for the massacre."
Prisoners transfer After the massacre and disturbances in the prison in Apodaca, three high-ranking leaders of
Los Zetas were transferred on 22 February 2012 to Puente Grande, a maximum security prison in
Jalisco. There were 22 inmates injured after the prisoners' transfer triggered another riot. One of the prisoners that was transferred, known as
El Comandante Chabelo, was reportedly the leader of
Los Zetas in certain parts of
Nuevo León and
Coahuila, and is believed to be responsible for drug trafficking, aggression to military officers and federal agents, as well as conducting other organized crime activities. The two other transfers, known by their aliases of
El Junior and
El Extraño, were contract killers of
Los Zetas.
La Vanguardia, however, noted that the prison in
Jalisco has "worse conditions than in Apodaca," and as of February 2012, the overpopulation of that prison ranges from 130 to 150%. The transfer of the prisoners caused a series of protests inside and outside the prison in Apodaca, and smog could be seen from the outside of the prison walls.
'Narco-blockades' in Monterrey The capital city of
Monterrey was not immune to the effects of the prison break and massacre, and on 24 February 2012 it experienced a series of the
narco-blockades, a military technique used by the drug cartels to cut off the roads and slow down authorities who were pursuing them. Law enforcement officials say that cartels block roads "as a show of force." According to reports by
CNNMéxico, alleged members of a drug cartel used buses and stripped people from their cars to block important avenues in Monterrey. Then, they began to put up several
narco-banners against the state government of
Nuevo León and the current governor,
Rodrigo Medina.
'Narco-banners' in Monterrey The
Blog del Narco published an article on 25 February 2012 reporting that the criminal group
Los Zetas had put up several
narco-banners, messages hung from bridges or in other public places, around the city of
Monterrey at around 8:00 pm According to a state police investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity, gunmen carjacked several cars and buses and blocked busy avenues in Monterrey to put up the messages allegedly signed by
Heriberto Lazcano alias
Z-3 and
Miguel Treviño Morales alias
Z-40, the two supreme leaders of the entire Los Zetas. The banners read the following: The banners also mentioned that
Rodrigo Medina, the governor, accepted briberies from the criminal organizations. The governor, however, reacted by saying that the messages posted by the cartel should be "discredited by the entire population," since they only "damage the public institutions" of the country. In addition, Medina reiterated his efforts to adopt efficient security measures for the state. Moreover, he mentioned that the message is a clear sign of "desperation" by the cartel due to the major blows it has received by the
Mexican government. As of 3 August 2012, 24 out of the 37 fugitives have been arrested or killed. == Past incidents==