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IMPORTANT UPDATE:
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Mr. Matthews has been incarcerated for a range of offenses including narcotics violations and weapons offenses according to my people at Optical Amplitude/Mexico Branch Office. Additional charges are pending for assault, fraud and theft.
Mexican prisons, officially known as Centers for Social Readaptation, are commonly overcrowded, filthy and dangerous and they are frequently staffed by undertrained and corrupt guards.
The state penitentiary in Tijuana, for example, where 157 Americans are held, was built to hold 1,800 inmates but currently has 4,300. The prison, where Aaron is being held, was built to accommodate 200 prisoners but now holds nearly 1,200. A solid block of forbidding whitewashed concrete walls topped with razor wire, this prison's upper stories have only barred, open slits for ventilation, and prisoners stuff blankets and newspapers into them to try to defeat the winter cold. Prisoners complain that they must buy food, medicine and other necessities from guards, or bribe guards to allow the goods to be brought in.
We got a quote from Aaron on the only five minute visit we were allowed. "You could get whiskey, drugs, women, whatever you wanted, as long as you had the money, but without my money or my bitches, I'm beginning to starve to death in here." - Aaron M.
Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant and guards there supply 40 percent of the illegal drugs smuggled into the prisons while inmates lack drinking water. The corruption and poor conditions have led to riots that endanger inmates.
Authorities stormed the prison with federal troops after riots broke out led by none other than our own Aaron. Ten prisoners were killed and dozens injured when Mr. Matthews went on an all out ballistic escape attempt.
Mexican efforts to curb gun smuggling and drug trafficking are using this incident as an example to all visitors to Mexico. That's right. Aaron is to be made an example of. United States officials visited Mr. Matthews twice after his arrest. He appeared to be under the influence of drugs on the first visit, they said, and was uncooperative on the second. They said he refused to sign a Privacy Act waiver that would have allowed them to work on his case. During the night of May 20th, Mr. Matthews became agitated and wandered around the cell where he was being held with 60 other inmates, according to Mexican officials. Mumbling incoherently, the officials said, he stumbled repeatedly over prisoners who were trying to sleep.
At least four prisoners and one guard severely beat Mr. Matthews, who then lay unconscious until he was taken to a hospital on May 21st, where he was pronounced dead.
Mexican officials have pledged to prosecute those responsible.
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SIG TOO BIG
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