Many cells left locked in Honduran prison fire
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COMAYAGUA, Honduras -- The only police officer with keys to every cell had a panic attack and ran off after the fire broke out. Firefighters, some only five minutes away, weren't called until nearly 20 minutes after the first flames were spotted. And once they arrived, they remained outside for several critical minutes after hearing gunshots from the watchtowers and the screams of dying inmates.
Human rights advocates and relatives of some of the more than 350 inmates who died in a fire Tuesday night say the deaths were unnecessary and blame the negligence of staff at this prison in northern Honduras.
"What we can definitely say is that these deaths could have been avoided if the cells had simply been unlocked," said Andres Pavon, president of the Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights. "We've found negligence here."
New details emerged on Thursday about the fire, during which officers began shooting into the air. Some stayed frozen in their posts, and some ran off -- bolting past desperate inmates begging for their lives. Heroics were left to some prisoners.
Fire department commanders and firefighters said they did not receive an emergency call until 10:59 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 20 minutes after the fire started. Three fire trucks and an ambulance pulled up to the entrance of a long gravel driveway leading to the prison complex. Flames a foot high could be seen through corrugated metal roof.
Then they waited outside the gates to avoid the gunfire from four officers in separate watchtowers.
Police officers denied they shot directly at prisoners, as some survivors said. Fidel Tejeda, an officer who was stationed in one of the watchtowers Tuesday night, said he and the others aimed their guns away from the prison buildings and toward the fields that surround the property.
"We were sounding the alarms, the way we're supposed to during fires and escapes," said Mr. Tejeda, who has worked at the prison for 14 years.
But authorities said there was no plan for how to deal with fires at the minimum-security prison, considered a model because inmates do agricultural work and care for livestock. And plan or no plan, the place was overcrowded: More than 830 prisoners were housed there when the fire broke out even though the buildings are supposed to house less than 500.
First Published February 17, 2012 12:00 am
