Police officers disperse the relatives of prisoners who were waiting to hear news about their family members imprisoned at a police station when a riot broke out, in Valencia, Venezuela, Wednesday, March... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police officers disperse the relatives of prisoners who were waiting to hear news about their family members imprisoned at a police station when a riot broke out, in Valencia, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 28, 2018. As news filtered out early in the day, angry family members seeking information clashed with police and pushed against a barricade, prompting officers to shoot tear gas at the crowd, according to local media reports. Chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab used Twitter to confirm the death toll, which includes two women thought to have been visiting the cells, adding that four prosecutors had been assigned to "clarify these dramatic events". It was one of the worst jail disasters in Venezuela, where human rights groups complain about poor conditions in prisons and jails. Another distraught mother, Aida Parra, said: "I don't know if my son is dead or alive. "They haven't told me anything." Shortly after that a fire broke out, with flames growing quickly as the blaze spread to mattresses in the cells, it said. His local political opponent, Juan Miguel Matheus, has demanded that those waiting outside the facility be kept informed: "The desperation of relatives should not be played with."
– At least 68 people were killed when fire swept through the cells of a police station in Venezuela early Wednesday—and relatives demanding answers later in the day were given tear gas instead. Tarek William Saab, chief prosecutor in the city of Valencia, says 68 people—66 men and two female visitors—died in "dramatic events" at the police command and detention center, and four prosecutors have been appointed to investigate the incident, CNN reports. "We will deepen the investigations to immediately clarify these painful events that has dozens of Venezuelan families in mourning," Saab says. Desperate families waiting for news outside the police station were tear-gassed and dispersed after fights with police, Sky News reports. The nonprofit group A Window to Freedom, which monitors conditions at detention facilities in Venezuela, says there are unconfirmed reports that the fire broke out during unrest that began when an armed detainee shot a guard in the leg, the AP reports. Inmates, some of them badly burned, had to be rescued through a hole made in the station wall. The group says severe overcrowding in police station jails is common in Venezuela. "It's grave and alarming," says Carlos Nieto Palma, the group's director.