Lurdes Avendaño Rejas was 35 years old, in just 15 days she was going to turn 36 and she was preparing to celebrate it with her family and friends. But this Saturday night motorcycle jets shot her to death from behind to steal her wallet. It was when she was waiting for the bus on Avenida Mariano Acosta at 2900, in Villa Soldati.
In a march to demand justice for Lurdes and more security in the neighborhood, the residents agreed that they have been “unprotected” for months due to the lack of police presence in the area. They say that the gendarmes left and that they don’t even have a police station in the area.
On the avenues Mariano Acosta and General Francisco Fernández de la Cruz avenue, one can breathe fed up and indignation. A few blocks from the fateful event, residents of Lurdes tried to channel their pain and anger into a call that had “justice, security and equality” as its main premise.
Lurdes’s father decided not to attend the march and take refuge with his loved ones, but he briefly told Clarín: “My pain is going to stay with my family. I’m going to lock myself in my pain. That person (the murderer) will not They have to take her out, she can’t be on the street so that what happened to my daughter doesn’t happen to other people.”
Neighbors say there is no police presence in Villa Soldati, where a woman was killed to steal her purse. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
“I have lived in the neighborhood for 33 years and the same thing always happens. We have no help from anyone. They live killing people. You can’t even walk anymore, ”a woman who participates in the protest and that she knew Lurdes told Clarín.
“We are threatened by that family,” added the neighbor, referring to the 14-year-old teenager suspected of having been the perpetrator of the crime and explained that she knew Lurdes.
Laura de los Santos (55), another neighbor who knew the murdered woman, said: “They killed a girl, a 35-year-old mother and left two children without a mother. It happened two blocks from my house. It can happen to me me, my neighbors, my husband. We don’t have security. They’re a bunch of assholes who are identified. In the groups are all the photos of the boys. We want justice and more security in the neighborhood.”
For the murder of Lurdes there is a 14-year-old suspect identified as the material author. But he is free. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
In addition to “justice” and “security”, another of the slogans repeated in the relamo of the neighbors was “we want a commissioner”. It is that the area currently does not have a police headquarters because they closed the police station that worked there. The verses of the national anthem were also sung.
The situation is chaotic. They took us out of the 36th police station already in the previous campaign. We are without a police station because they moved it to Lugano. We are commune 8 and we are made up of Soldati, Lugano and Villa Riachuelo. All the police stations are in Lugano, we don’t have a police station. I was in Pedernera, crossing Varela, about 15 blocks from here. Now it is attached to Jumbo climbing within the jurisdiction of Lugano,” said Eliana.
“They took them out because supposedly we are an area that does not have insecurity. But it is the most insecure in the entire capital. We are the end of the Capital, considered no man’s land. You leave after 8 p.m. and anything can happen to you. All Soldati is with nothing. I move by car and try to move along safe paths, which there are not because all the domes that we have are not connected to the police station, “he added.
“I knew her from the Fatima school because she had a kiosquito with her brother. They attended him every day. She had become fond of my children. She was very cool. When this happened I was surprised,” said Efraina Villca.
On security in Soldati, he commented: “We are very bad. There are many little assholes who walk around and suddenly they take something from you. And if you do not have anything, they threaten you with a knife. My mother was robbed four times. On top of that, they hit her once. “
Most of the residents who participated in the protest and spoke to Clarín prefer not to give their names for fear of what might happen to them later. They know that once the media is gone, reality returns to the same as every day and they feel unprotected.
Massive demand for security after the crime in Lurdes. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
“We saw her grow. We worked at the school where she worked. As a volunteer, as a cook in the summer. She was helping all year long,” said a group of neighbors.
Lurdes was born in Bolivia and came to Argentina when she was 4 years old. He had two brothers. Her father works as a landlord at the school and her mother as a cook. The family has lived on the property for over 30 years. That is why they are so well known and loved in the neighborhood.
“Today Lurdes is all of us because it could be any of us. There is a family torn apart. If this happened to me, I would kill him (the thief) with my own hands. I will not wait for this false justice. There is no justice. The kid is in the house because he is a minor. But does he have the right to kill our children?” one of the neighbors claimed.
“We have asked Larreta and the security minister a thousand times to be present. There is no budget for the police. The police are tied hand and foot. The gendarmes were all removed. We went back to 2010 again when everything was a disaster,” said one of the protesters.
The priests of the neighborhood participated in the claim. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
Sandra Catelotti, another neighbor who has lived in Soldati for 33 years, remarked that for several months everything “is a disaster.”
“Every day there are incidents of insecurity. Armed motorcycles at any time. Before we had much more police and patrol cars, gendarmes. We made cuts due to the issue of light and I told the commissioner about all the problems in the neighborhood. When I called the Prosecutor’s Office, When I found out about all the robberies there were, I told them: Are you waiting for a death? And after a few days this happened,” Catelotti said.
Julieta, a teacher, also referred to the lack of security: “Before, you called the patrolman and he was there two minutes later. I have lived here for 23 years. At one time we were very insecure and we marched to the police station, security improved, then the gendarmerie came and now there is a lack of patrolling, of presence and the lack of response when we call 911. Sometimes they are called 5, 6, 7 times, they insist and they don’t show up. We feel that they are liberating the area “Now I feel that we went through the same experience as 15 years ago or worse. It’s in the south. In Villa Lugano they are suffering exactly the same.”
“Enough of stealing lives.” The claim of the residents of Soldati. Photo Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi
The tragic event occurred on Saturday around 10:30 p.m., on Avenida Mariano Acosta at 2900, in the southern part of the City of Buenos Aires. According to witnesses, the two criminals were riding an enduro-type motorcycle, with a white tank, and they wanted to steal his wallet.
Lurdes tried to prevent the robbery and began to run to escape the criminals. The motorcycles had no mercy and fired: the bullet entered Lurdes’s back, in the dorsal region. The woman immediately fell to the ground, face down, and died on the spot.
MG
