A group of five teenagers between 14 and 17 years old are delayed at the door of Unicenter Shopping, in Martínez, by employees of the private security company Securitas and people in plain clothes without identification in sight. Three will enter and two will not. It is two in the afternoon on Friday, June 28. At 3:00 p.m. the “garbage gathering”, a gathering of teenagers from the suburbs, which went viral on social media, with a simple goal: to show off among their peers clothing from well-known sports brands in shopping malls. The closest antecedent could be the floggers that met in Abasto and other shopping malls in the country in 2007.
Last weekend, more than 200 teenagers gathered at Tortugas Open Mall, also in the northern part of Buenos Aires. But in the food court, the circumstances are still unclear, a fight broke out that ended with 15 people arrested and four teenagers injured, two of them stabbed. They had previously tried to meet at Alto Avellaneda, but the police and security personnel denied them entry.
The call this Friday at the Unicenter circulated through X and was a gathering of “girls”.
When consulted by elDiarioAR, sources in charge of security at Unicenter, which belongs to the Chilean group Cencosud, confirmed that “security was reinforced with both private and police security personnel to keep calm for the rest of consumers”. In fact, in addition to guaranteeing security, the aim is to prevent an event from happening that bothers some neighbors and is axis of discriminatory criticism on social networks.
“The most dirty thing I have ever seen in my life”, “Darker than calling a gathering of thugs in a shopping mall and ending up with knives. We will not go out anymore, unless you create a State like Bukele, we must drop the human rights pacts”, “Let’s take advantage and send the Halcón group”, “I hope it rots so we can start the definitive cleaning of slum dwellers”, are some of the messages that are read in response to the movement of young people from the suburbs. Some refer to the kids as “Peronists”, others respond with photos of the KKK or the Nazi flag.
At 1 in the afternoon a 20-year-old boy with a river jacket and cap is intercepted at the entrance. He is an employee at McDonald’s in the food court, he is in a hurry because he is late for work, but they don’t believe him and they delay him to ask for the document, they search his backpack.
Of the five boys detained at two in the afternoon, the three who were allowed in are 14, 16 and 17 years old. They are from Victoria. They feel that they are being judged by their clothes. “On top of that, they tell us that there was a lot of clothing, but we didn’t even know. We came to see a movie,” they say. They had to show their movie tickets.
The other two friends, Manuel and Jonathan, are on their way back, they were not allowed to pass. Jonathan is 17 years old and is wearing a Boca jersey, has a piercing in his eyebrow, Manuel is 16, wears a Topper jacket and has a shaved head on the side. They are from Pablo Nogués, in the Malvinas Argentinas district. They traveled 40 minutes to buy some sneakers at the Unicenter. “Tomorrow it’s the pilchera, on the terraces of San Miguel. I want to pass, I want to buy my sneakers”Manuel protests. He brought the money saved for some 47street shoes that he was looking for and only found at Unicenter.
Two girls, one 16 and the other 17, who are from San Isidro, say that this is the first time they have been asked for their ID to enter. They did not know that there was a “pilchera” today, but they know about the activity because of what happened at Tortugas Mall. They think that it is good that there is control, they feel safer. Jonathan and Manuel were told that they were denied entry because minors are not allowed in today.
At 2:30 p.m., three police vehicles arrive at the entrance to Paraná: a patrol car and a truck from the Buenos Aires police, and an armored vehicle from the Departmental Support Group (GAD) of the provincial police that operates in the northern suburbs. part of the country’s tactical units. In the IG story of the profile of the tactical units this Friday, you read the press release from the Ministry of Security announcing the sending to Congress of a project promoted by Javier Milei to lower the age of punishment for minors under 13 years of age.
Inside the shopping center, among passersby and buyers with bags of Burgués, Rapsodia and Black Label, uniformed and armed police circulate. “A lot of things are said on social networks, but on this side we are warned. There is a lot of reinforcement,” says a Securitas employee. She explains that the shopping coordination provided reinforcements, she talks about police motives and says that minors cannot enter alone. “A small group that we see, a small group that we go and interview, but I don’t think it will become a mess. This whole thing about the rag is a huge nonsense, I don’t know, they are bored.“The thing with the clothes happened years ago, and well, they are minors, we got them out” he concludes.
The entrance in front of the Panamericana is closed “for security,” says the person in charge of the checkpoint. You can only enter through Paraná or Edison. In Paraná, a man with a jacket with the Unicenter logo says that security is a matter of prevention because “last week minors gathered at the Tortugas Mall and riots were generated, so the police act ex officio. “We want people to be calm.”
Security will also be reinforced this Saturday at the Alto Rosario shopping mall, where another “pilchera” is planned. According to Cadena 3, Control Urbano will also carry out a prevention operation.
Shopping malls, although spaces for collective use, are walled buildings managed by private capital that seek isolation from the climate, the discomforts of public space (insecurity, poverty, noise) and from those people considered undesirable. The setting seeks to mimic the public to reduce the perception of restricted accessibility. The joint pilchera is convened in these spaces because it embodies a ritual of double viewing: one attends to see and to be seen. There is a flow of conflicting powers and resistances when the stigmatized buyer – subjectivization that is not linked to the purchase itself – wants to access the cathedral of capitalism and be there, walk around, feel immersed. Shopping malls are environments of social differentiation, both for the established and the marginalized.
MR/DTC
