Mexico City police chief ousted

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said the resignation of Police Chief Joel Ortega was the first step in a plan to reconstruct the police force. Ortega had held the post since 2004, when he replaced Ebrard--who was fired in a different police scandal.

The mayor made the announcement shortly after Mexico City's Human Rights Commission presented a report alleging rampant misconduct by officials in the June 20 raid on the News Divine nightclub that it said "created a death trap."

City prosecutor Rodolfo Felix Cardenas offered to step down and later Tuesday he told a news conference that Ebrard had accepted his resignation. His replacement has not been announced.

A criminal investigation did not find evidence that Ortega had committed any crime, but he has been the target of harsh criticism.

Ebrard said that he wants to "make major institutional changes" to the city's police department to avoid such tragedies in the future.

"We have to build a different kind of police force," he said.

He appointed Health Secretary Manuel Mondragon as interim police chief.

Officers responding to reports of drugs and underage drinking blocked the club's lone exit, creating a deadly stampede in which nine young club-goers and three police were asphyxiated or crushed to death. Among the dead were teens aged 13 and 14.

Thirty-nine police and borough officials, as well as the club's owner, have been charged in the case. The precinct police chief who led the raid, Guillermo Zayas, faces 12 counts of homicide. Zayas said in a television interview Tuesday that he's being made a scapegoat.