Brazilian Police Quell Prison Riot
About 300 military police stormed Latin America’s largest prison today to quell rioting by thousands of drunken inmates who ransacked cells and set fire to bedding and furniture. Nine inmates were killed before calm was restored.
State Security Secretary Michal Temor said the Sao Paulo state prison’s 6,200 inmates were either locked in their cells or helping to clean up the facility. Eleven guards who had been held hostage by the inmates were released, he said. “The prisoners were drunk with ‘Mad Mary,’ a fire water (alcohol) they make secretly,” prison Warden Luis Wolfmann said.
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