Two officers of the Córdoba Police have been detained since last January after having carried out a violent street control against people in the SEP neighborhood of the provincial capital. In that operation, a young man ended up with blows to the head and a woman received several hits with rubber bullets from shotgun shots. The uniformed officers were detained and will continue to be.
The fact is that, in the last hours, the investigating prosecutor Iván Rodríguez issued the preventive detentions.
The accused are assistant officer Oriana Milena Lucena (23) and sergeant Ángel Sebastián Toledo Ramírez (43), who are accused of the alleged crimes of: serious aggravated injuries, humiliation, illegal detention and ideological falsehood.
It is not ruled out that, as the investigation progresses, the charges may become even more serious and new arrests may occur.
For the prosecutor, what happened constitutes a case of institutional violence.
In parallel, both uniformed officers obviously remain in a passive situation by order of the Disciplinary Control Body of the Security Forces, according to official sources.
violent action
The serious episode dates back to December 23 in the SEP neighborhood, southern area of the city of Córdoba.
According to the case, an identifiable police patrol in which uniformed Lucena (car leader) and Toledo were traveling decided to control a young man who was walking with a girl. It is unclear why they went to check on the couple.
The boy had regained his freedom the day before, after having been imprisoned for a few months for an alleged theft of a cell phone.
One version is that one of the police officers had already detained him at the first opportunity and decided to control him upon seeing him free again.
As it was, the couple was detained in the middle of a public road. The 18-year-old boy began to be searched for weapons. Nothing anomalous was found.
According to spokespersons for the case, his girlfriend ran away – scared – and went to tell her mother-in-law what had happened.
When the boy’s mother arrived, she saw that her son was about to be put into the patrol car.
It was then that situations entered a spiral of violence.
There was shouting, insults and pushing. And in those circumstances, there began to be hitting and pulling.
One of the uniformed officers took out the 12/70 caliber regulation shotgun and fired at least two shots with anti-riot (AT) cartridges that have rubber pellets. One of the uniformed officers would have given express orders to shoot.
The young man was beaten and his mother ended up with injuries to her hands and legs from the rubber batons.
Everything was filmed with a cell phone
Part of the scene was captured by a person who had taken out his cell phone. In these records, part of the violent actions are observed. It’s not the complete scene.
That video went viral a few days later.
Other patrols arrived at the scene to control the situation. There were more insults and running.
“It was an extremely violent action. Nothing justified what those police officers did. They went to check on a young man who had not done anything and had nothing unusual or strange. Still, they wanted to stop him. “They treated him like a criminal and he had done absolutely nothing,” said lawyer Carlos Nayi, who represents the young man and his mother as a plaintiff.
After the complaint made by Nayi, the case fell to the prosecutor’s office of Iván Rodríguez. This judicial unit, by directive of the Attorney General’s Office of the Province, brings together all causes of institutional violence and other crimes committed by police officers.
“We need to have police officers with energy and support for these complex times, but this does not enable us to do anything. What those police officers did was something else… There was no reason to act that way. Hitting the boy against the patrol car and shooting his mother with a shotgun,” the lawyer complained.
In January, in the middle of the fair, the police officers were arrested and charged with serious injuries aggravated by functional quality and by the use of a firearm, humiliation, illegal detention and ideological falsehood.
The police version of what happened was never known.
Preventive detention for police officers
When justifying the preventive detention, the prosecutor maintained that the particular seriousness of the facts investigated was taken into account. “These are injuries caused by the illegal use of the regulation weapon, as well as the subsequent behavior of the accused to avoid judicial investigation and ensure their impunity,” he stressed.
“An intersectional analysis of the victim’s situation was carried out, since, due to her special situation of vulnerability, any intimidating activity or manipulation of institutional resources that the accused could deploy would be projected in a particularly intense and detrimental way for the victim. her,” said the official, in a resolution issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“This situation imposes the need to absolutely guarantee not only their integrity and security during the process, but also the regular development of the investigation. The attention to this type of cases is essential to modify authoritarian and violent state practices, and also reflects compliance with the obligations assumed by the State at the international level, in matters of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” the official sentenced.
