Death of Lucas González: for the Prosecutor’s Office “there are serious indications” that the police officers “have misrepresented the facts”

The investigating prosecutor Leonel Gómez Barbella said “there are serious indications that raise suspicions” that the Buenos Aires City Police officers who shot Lucas Gónzalez on Wednesday morning in Barracas, Gabriel Isassi, Fabián López and Jose Nievas, “they have misrepresented the facts when reporting them to the judicial authority to improve their procedural situation ”.

This was stated by Gómez Barbera along with the head of the Institutional Violence Attorney, Andrés Heim, in an opinion that they presented yesterday at the last minute in which they asked that the requests for exemption from prison of the three policemen be rejected. The exemption consists of ensuring that they are not detained while the judicial investigation is underway. Now the judge must decide Martin Del Viso, whom the prosecutors asked other measures in the case, among them that it dictates the secrecy of summary of the case, informed Infobae judicial sources.

The position of the prosecutors leaves the accused close to their arrests, which could be specified when all the evidence is gathered to summon them to the investigation and accuse them of the crime of aggravated homicide for having been perpetrated by members of the police forces abusing their functions, which was the one set by the Prosecutor’s Office in the case. Since yesterday at noon it is in charge of Gómez Barbella.

“If the judge orders the arrest, they will go to carry it out,” said Alfredo Olivan yesterday, one of the policemen’s lawyers who added that when they shot Lucas they were serving in one of the entrances of the village 21-24 by order of a Public Prosecutor’s Office of the city of Buenos Aires in relation to crimes related to drug trafficking. But he did not give more details while waiting to expose them in court.

On Wednesday morning Lucas and three friends left training at the Barracas Central football club and returned to Florencio Varela.

Isassi, López and Nievas asked yesterday, through their lawyers, to remain free for the duration of the investigation. They did so based on the principle of innocence until they had a firm conviction and because there are no risks to the cause since they have roots, they were made available to the Justice and were made available by the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security and with that decision they do not pay currently functions as policemen.

Prosecutors objected. “The characteristics and nature of the fact attributed to it constitute aggravated homicide are negatively valued for having been perpetrated by members of the police forces abusing their functions,” they argued. For this crime, the National Penal Code establishes the penalty of life imprisonment.

The three accused policemen

They also pointed out that there are risks of hindering the cause and of escape: “It is not beyond the analysis that there are serious indications that make us suspect that the accused have misrepresented the facts when reporting them to the judicial authority to improve their procedural situation, a circumstance that would account not only for their desire to withdraw from the criminal process that is being followed, but also to hinder the investigation. “

The reference is that the first version of the policemen in their modulations was that they had a confrontation with Lucas, 17, and his three friends. That has already been ruled out.

Prosecutors Goméz Barbella and Heim added that the police have the possibility of threatening witnesses and relatives and that belonging to a security force places them in “a place of indisputable power in the social context in which they operate” and that it gives them “Diverse knowledge about what actions and maneuvers are skillful and effective to develop with a view to withdrawing from the process, in addition to the fact that this position makes him creditor of countless people of reference within the force who could collaborate in such an objective”.

Finally, the Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that the freedom of the police could affect Lucas’s friends when they have to testify as witnesses. They pointed out that in this type of serious crime “it cannot be ruled out that, due to its nature, it has caused psychological repercussions on the victims, which negatively impact their willingness to collaborate and testify in the framework of the investigation – fundamental extremes of the evidentiary framework that will support the accusation-, in case the freedom of the accused is not restricted at the moment ”.

On Wednesday morning Lucas and three friends left training at the Barracas Central football club and returned to Florencio Varela, where they live, in a Volkswagen Suran owned by one of their father. They stopped at a kiosk to buy juice when they began to be chased by an unidentified car that they said were policemen.

They were in civilian clothes. The boys thought they were thieves and escaped. They fired four shots at him. Two hit the head of Lucas who died Thursday afternoon at the El Cruce de Florencio Varela hospital. In the Suran a replica of a weapon was found that the policemen suspected to have left to reinforce their alibi that their shots were caused by a threat.

“I wanted to take him home but the police killed him, I’m not going to rest until they pay because they ruined our lives,” said Cintia, Lucas’s mother, broken into tears, in her demand for justice.

Lucas’s parents in Florencio Varela

Lucas’s three friends were detained and were in a juvenile institute until Thursday when they were released. The juvenile judge Alejandro Cilleruelo dismissed them after determining that they did not commit any crime.

“Opening fire with three 9 mm pistols, against a moving car in the way in which it was done, that is to say, it was shot at the height of vital areas, that is, not at the tires to achieve effective arrest, it is unfortunate,” said the magistrate in his resolution.

Also that “the police in a democracy cannot act under any circumstances surreptitiously and without proper identification, less when they are ordering the arrest of a vehicle from which, as it was found, no aggression of any nature started, since there were no firearms operating from the Volkswagen Suran car ”.

After dismissing Lucas’s friends, the judge declared himself incompetent to continue with the case. The file passed to the investigating court. The magistrate Del Viso delegated the investigation to the prosecutor Gómez Barbella who has had it since yesterday at noon. Now the judge must resolve the requests for exemption from prison of the policemen.