OUT OF CONTROL

Crowd Steals Suspects From Police, Kills Them and Sets Them Ablaze

Police in Haiti said they’d confiscated weapons from the 13 suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched.”

A crowd in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince snatched 13 suspected gang members away from police and killed them in the middle of the street Monday, according to multiple reports. A witness quoted by the AP said the crowd beat and stoned the suspects before lighting them on fire with gas-soaked tires. The Haiti National Police confirmed the incident in a brief statement, noting that officers had confiscated weapons from the suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population.” Criminal gangs have seized control of an estimated 60 percent of the city since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021, leading to rising violence and chaos that the United Nations has said is “comparable to countries in armed conflict.”