Applying MORT to the analysis of the “Tláhuac” incident

The “Tláhuac” incident occurred in Mexico City on 23 November 2004. The fatal incident took place when an angry crowd burnt two police officers alive and seriously injured another after mistaking them for child kidnappers. The third policeman who was finally rescued by colleagues suffered serious injuries. This paper presents some preliminary results of the incident by applying the management over-sight risk tree (MORT) technique. The MORT technique may be regarded as a structured checklist in the form of a complex “fault tree” model that is intended to ensure that all aspects of an organization's management are looked into when assessing the possible causes of an incident. Some other approaches such as a systemic view will be adopted in the future for further analysis. It is hoped that by conducting such analysis lessons can be learnt so that incidents such as the case of “Tláhuac” can be prevented in the future.