Global Courant
The shooting looked like a scene from an action series. The sequence was at night, in the dark, in a coal shop on the outskirts of Zárate. Five armed and hooded robbers broke into the owner’s house. An employee and a Buenos Aires police officer ended up murdered. Two months after the fact, the assailants are still on the run.
The double crime occurred on Thursday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m. It is one more case of insecurity and death in the Province of Buenos Aires in which the investigations begin quickly but are not resolved. He even had a detainee who was released after a few hours. This is the agent of the Buenos Aires Dino Nicolás “El Correntino” Meneses (29). However, judicial sources explain to Clarín that he “continues to be linked to the cause” and there are “five fugitives who were not identified.”
On April 27 thieves killed a policeman and an employee of a coal shop in Zárate.
The cases in which the Buenos Aires catches “parsleys” that later have no relation to the fact are repeated. They occur when procedural errors and the rush to “sell a closed case” are mixed in a few hours to respond to social pressure demanding “justice and security.” It is a dangerous combo for constitutional guarantees and this is how many times the innocent end up in the police stations, the true culprits go free and the cases go unpunished. Why is this happening? Do the police trust any information? Do prosecutors work without too much accurate data?
The complexities of an investigation
“When serious events such as a homicide or robbery occur, people feel that they could be that person. We are all exposed. The feeling of insecurity becomes concrete. It also affects the neighborhood. Given this scenario, there is some flexibility on the part of the police and the prosecutors”, admits a prosecutor from the Province of Buenos Aires to Clarín.
In fact, a homicide on the occasion of robbery provides for a penalty of 10 to 25 years (art. 165 Penal Code). A harsh penalty that responds to the fact that the object of legal-criminal protection is twofold: the right to property and the right to life are protected.
So in the face of this crime, emergency raids are ordered. The same source details that the procedure implies that “the prosecutor does not request the search from the judge because the delay can frustrate the investigation. But later he asks for its validation.”
The motochorros that assassinated the businessman Andrés Blaquier were recorded by the cameras but first they arrested two parsleys.
The policeman arrives with information about a certain person, he explains, which is generally obtained in the criminal world. “Criminals who know the offender want to get rid of it, so someone sells it. This information can have two or three points. Sometimes you can screw up because there is less data than what you would have with more time.”
But clarifying what happened is necessary not only “for the police but for the prosecutor, the family of the victim who is demanding justice and politics.” The sources emphasize that “the rulers are affected when the media hit them when there are no detainees. It has a political cost.” And the media trial says present.
“From the legal point of view, this action is not the best, we measure the emergency situation and see the seriousness of the fact,” acknowledges another judicial source. In parallel, “the Police want to find the perpetrator because it brings a cost if he is not found, for example, they remove the commissioner or the Minister of Security.” The other side is that “clumsiness and speed play against”.
The line is very fine between formal and informal procedures. “It is very complicated because if the information is not provided quickly, then the relatives of the victim point it out to the police and the judicial operators. The television channels interview them and end up saying that although they knew who the murderers were, they let them escape because they did not They acted fast.”
María Cristina De Vicentiis was assassinated in her home in San Isidro on March 8. There are no detainees in the case. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
In this context, a man in San Isidro was arrested for the crime of his mother. After a month Aldo Antonio Di Paolo (65) was released due to lack of evidence. On March 8, the man had found María Cristina De Vicentiis (90) lying on the kitchen floor, lifeless and with a knife stuck in her neck. Two days later they had arrested him.
“There are no other defendants apart from the son,” sources from the investigation told Clarín. The first hypothesis was that they killed her when they robbed her, but she was ruled out and her son ended up in the crosshairs accused of matricide.
In the house there were no forced doors or windows, and some neighbors declared that the retiree used to leave the door open when she went out with her wheelchair to get some air. Due to her physical condition, she was always assisted by her son, but for two days he had no news from her. And although he lived around the corner, he did not go to see her. The alerts were turned on, but four months after the fact, it was not verified who killed her.
The technology
Although technology paves the way to investigate, by providing evidence, it is worth clarifying that it does not solve cases. Despite security camera recordings, cell phone locations and information, and wiretaps, traditional evidence—such as witnesses and physical characteristics, such as tattoos—are necessary.
Security cameras are not enough to prevent and clarify criminal cases. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
Di Paolo was released precisely because the security cameras, located in front of the victim’s house, showed that she was alive the day after her son visited her. In addition to the fact that the garbage collectors had contact with the woman. These testimonies were key for the son to recover his freedom.
After the De Vicentiis crime, at the end of May, two men tried to steal the motorcycle from policeman Lucas Abrahan José Mallea (31) in Moreno. Dressed in civilian clothes, he killed one of the criminals with four shots in the back. The sequence was recorded in HD by a “safe stops” camera that did not serve to prevent the event.
Mallea was arrested, charged with aggravated manslaughter, and later released. The other thief, despite being filmed and having the identity of the one who was killed, is still on the run. “The case is still in the middle of the investigation process and in the analysis of the different expert reports that have been carried out. And on the other hand, they are working on the search for the second suspect who fled the place on a motorcycle,” judicial sources maintain.
Another case in which there are difficulties not only to prevent but also to clarify cases of insecurity is that of the judge and his guard who shot dead two of the thieves who wanted to assault them in Quilmes on Saturday. According to the investigation, between 5 and 7 thieves participated in the incident. A third suspect was seriously injured. The rest are fugitives.
Daniel Barrientos, the bus driver murdered in a robbery in Virrey del Pino
However, the case of insecurity that most convulsed the Province of Buenos Aires -and even included a beating of the Buenos Aires Security Minister Sergio Berni- was that of the driver of line 620, Daniel Barrientos. It happened in Virrey del Pino, La Matanza.
It also involved two men who were detained and released in April for lack of evidence: Alex Gabriel Barone and Gabriel Alejandro Barone. That same month the murder was committed. After more than a month, a 15-year-old teenager and Edgardo Martín Muñoz (21) alias “Magu” ended up in custody. For now, the homicide has not been clarified.
The rapid search for culprits occurred in the Barrientos crime as well as in that of the agricultural businessman Andrés Blaquier (62). At the end of last year, the case had a strong turn when an arrested couple was separated from the cause. They had been arrested within hours of the murder.
Brisa de los Ángeles Villarreal (18) and her boyfriend, Luciano Jesús González, alias “Lucianito” (18) had been accused of having shot the businessman who was riding his motorcycle in Panamericana with a shot to the chest. A few days later, the Justice retracted, separated them from the case and arrested two teenagers. They are prosecuted with pretrial detention. This June, one of them escaped from the juvenile institution where he was staying in Lomas de Zamora. He is still on the run.
MG
