Family Upset at Investigation of Death in Tijuana Bar Brawl

A waiter at a Tijuana nightclub will face murder charges in the death of an Oakland man in a barroom brawl, Mexican officials ruled Monday.

But the victim’s family complained that Mexican officials have not done enough to resolve the case. They hold Mexican authorities partially responsible.

Lamont Hill, 27, died May 26 after a racially tinged brawl in a Tijuana nightclub.

Hill’s family reacted angrily after learning Monday that four Mexican suspects had been freed from a Tijuana jail, while only one man will face possible sentencing.

“If this is the way they handle things, they don’t have to handle foreigners any more. They don’t have to have Americans come and give them their money,” said Robin Hill, the victim’s sister-in-law.

U.S. consular officials say they are looking into Hill’s case.

Hill, a towering 6-foot-8-inch, unemployed Teamster, had gone barhopping in Tijuana the night of May 26 with childhood friend Taron Bryant and older brother Anthony Hill, of Hayward, Calif. He died early Sunday in the Iguana Ranas nightclub on Tijuana’s tourist strip after a fistfight, according to local authorities and Hill’s family.

Mexican state police detained 63 people for questioning, said Raul Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Baja state attorney general. Five of them, all nightclub employees, were charged with aggravated murder.

After a preliminary review by criminal Judge Alberto Molina Hernandez in Tijuana on Monday, officials announced that only Felipe Patricio Wassenteil Carrillo, 25, will remain jailed and face further proceedings on a simple homicide charge.

Unlike the others, Wassenteil is suspected of directly causing Hill’s death by choking, Gutierrez said. If found guilty, Wassenteil faces eight to 15 years in state prison.

Anthony Hill gave this account of the events leading to his brother’s death:

After about three hours of drinking and club hopping along the strip, the three men--all of them black--arrived at the Iguana Ranas about 12:30 a.m. accompanied by four young American women they had recently met.

A Mexican man in a baseball cap approached one of the women, a Latina, and asked her to dance. When the woman declined, the man in the cap chastised her for dating black men and used a racial slur. Offended, she told her companions.

Some time later, Bryant confronted the man in the baseball cap. The man swung and missed, and Lamont Hill swung back. A brawl ensued. Anthony Hill said he tried to break it up but was restrained. Men who Hill thought were bouncers jumped on Lamont, beating him with flashlights and punching him. Even after he fell, one man “was jumping on his head,” Anthony Hill said.

Hill further alleges that Tijuana police who arrived only made matters worse, and may have been among those who hit Lamont. After the brawl died down, Anthony Hill administered CPR to his brother, and believes he succeeded in triggering a faint pulse. But authorities pulled him away. “They killed him again. . . . I got him alive, and he had to die again,” he said.

Authorities gave a similar account, saying that the fight had broken out after the tourists confronted Mexican revelers over derogatory racial comments. Lamont Hill “was very large. . . . He hit this other youth and knocked him down. People tried to stop him. Someone grabbed him by the neck,” Gutierrez said.

Juan Tintos Funcke, Baja state tourism secretary, said that according to reports he received, there were paramedics at the scene when police arrived. The report noted that Anthony Hill had said that his brother had cardiovascular problems that became worse when he drank, Tintos said.

Mexican and American officials have jointly worked over the last two years to improve the safety of tourists, Tintos said.

Managers of the nightclub could not be reached for comment, and Wassenteil’s lawyer did not return a phone call. Mexican authorities called the incident unusual, but noted that brawls take place nearly every weekend night in the border city, which is a magnet for drinkers and partyers.

Hill’s family plans a memorial service Thursday. Anthony Hill described Lamont, who was laid off recently, as an outgoing, affectionate man, especially when he drank.

“He could crack jokes, but it was his laugh that would have you busting up,” he said. “It was almost like a Santa Claus laugh, but with a high pitch.”

He said he plans to seek legal redress from Mexican authorities and the nightclub management. “Right now, my wife is crying, and I am just completely angry,” he said. “What kind of justice is this?”