Global Courant 2023-05-13 06:38:36
Legitimate defense or easy trigger? A popular jury settled this Friday between the two hypotheses that -depending on who wielded it- led to a tragic end to a young life, that of Brandon Romero, an 18-year-old boy shot to death at the hands of a Buenos Aires Police second lieutenant who fended off an attempted assault. The boy, who was unarmed, was shot seven times. The jury favored the first hypothesis: it declared the policeman “not guilty”.
The last day of the trial lasted almost twelve hours, between arguments and the two hours it took for the popular jury made up of a dozen Mar del Plata residents to decide on the case. When he did so, declaring policeman Pedro Arcángel Bogado, 39, “not guilty”, in the street there were incidents between the police and protesters, neighbors and members of social organizations, for whom the death of the young man was a case of “easy trigger “.
The event occurred during the early morning of July 5, 2020. Bogado was returning from visiting a friend in the Santa Paula neighborhood, and upon returning along Route 226, at the height of the Hipódromo neighborhood, two motorcycles came out at the intersection. He was riding an electric scooter.
The version that is known, partially corroborated by images from some security cameras, is the one that the agent himself gave to Justice: that one of the motorcycles with two people followed him and that when he intercepted him, already prepared to defend himself, “he threw to the bundle”.
This week the jury trial took place, which ended this Friday with the allegations. The lawyers defending Romero’s family asked that the cash be found guilty of “aggravated homicide by the use of a firearm”, which could have earned him a sentence of between 10 and 33 years in prison.
César Sivo and Romina Merino considered it accredited that the defendant “executed” Romero as “an executioner”, and that he did not issue a single word to speak out as a security agent.
Relatives and relatives of Brandon Romero protested outside the courts. Photo Telam
The young man’s mother, Romina Vergara, maintains that the boy “was shot,” that Bogado “killed him like a dog.” That’s what he shouted when the ruling was known, on Colón Avenue, when the incidents began. “He destroyed it for me”, he would shout: “Mar del Plata is shit”, he would say before breaking down. She should have been treated on the spot.
That of Sivo and Merino was the only accusation. Before coming to trial, the prosecutor Alejandro Pellegrinelli had requested the dismissal of the second lieutenant, so he did not participate in the debate. The prosecutor, when confirming the attempted robbery, considered that Bogado acted in legitimate defense. The point is proportionality: seven bullets to neutralize someone unarmed?
For Sivo, the event was “a clear example of police and institutional violence,” for which he questioned the Public Prosecutor’s Office for supporting “the idea of impunity” by withdrawing from the prosecution.
It considered that during the debate it was proven that on the morning of July 5, 2020, around 6:40 a.m., Bogado was approached by a motorcycle with at least three crew members while he was riding another motorcycle, and that they fired firearms “at the air”.
In his argument, he said that the policeman evaded them and that, after “taking the wrong way” along the road, he stopped his vehicle, turned it off and “drew his weapon”, until another motorcycle appeared on which Romero and another young man were riding. who “were going to rob him unarmed”.
“Without issuing the slightest word, Bogado brandishes his firearm and starts shooting,” he alleged, and described a sequence: that he first “attacks Brandon,” then he shoots the driver of the motorcycle, who escaped from the scene, and then “he fires three shots from the front again”.
What Sivo maintained is that then Romero was already “kneeling on the floor, he no longer represented any risk.” The policeman called 911, in the audio that was heard at the trial, he himself tells the operator that the body “does not move” and he believes “he has killed him.” He had been lying on the asphalt and was hit by two vehicles. There were other audios.
In the last hearing, this Friday, Bogado denied such circumstances. He said that when he was approached by the second motorcycle, he shouted to stop, that he told them “go away, I’m a policeman” and that he heard when one of the two assailants told him “we’re going to kill you for the motorcycle, black.” He then he emptied the magazine. Of the seven bullets he received, two hit Romero in the temple.
The area of La Rioja and Avenida Colón, in the center of the city, where the headquarters of the Juvenile Criminal Responsibility Jurisdiction is located, woke up this Friday and remained that way all day, heavily guarded and fenced off in the presence of social organizations that They denounce that the death of Romero was a case of “easy trigger”.
After the prosecution’s argument, the defense of the officer, in charge of Martín Bernat, Paula Erviti and Agustín Robbio, who announced at the beginning of the trial that he will seek acquittal on the understanding that the cash acted in “legitimate defense”.
Bernat maintained that four issues were proven: the existence of a robbery, Bogado’s attempt to escape, his subsequent intention to hide when the assailants returned to look for him, and that the only tool he had left was to defend himself.
“They could not prove that there were two different events or that there was a firing squad and we accredit from the statement of Farias -who was traveling on the motorcycle with Romero- that there were five people with the intention of stealing, that they were armed and that there were at least three previous shots”, said the defender.
The jury then deliberated until they reached a verdict of guilty or not guilty. It took just over two hours and, as it was a jury trial, the sentence remains final, that is, it cannot be appealed.
The trial began last Monday, and over the course of four days, 15 witnesses testified, videos from security cameras located in the area of fact were also reproduced, and audios sent in the following hours by the defendant, some of them very strong: ” The important thing is that everything went well, that I’m fine, and obviously the important thing is that that rat is not going to steal from anyone, from anyone.”
DB
