Dew Magnani
08/01/2020 - 10:58
- Clarín.com
- Police
"Today they started stealing again," says Fabián. His son plays in the plaza of Avenida Roca y Montes de Oca, on the outskirts of Villa Tranquila, a few meters from where the Prefecture was for six days. "There was no robbery at that time, we slept peacefully," he says, and recounted that on Thursday, the first night without the controls, he felt shots incessantly: "And not small shots; 22 caliber shots, with 9 millimeters, with a shotgun, whatever you want ”.
This Friday was a week of the operation in which federal forces joined the Buenos Aires to carry out patrol and prevention tasks in the Conurbano, within the framework of the increase in crimes during the coronavirus quarantine. In Avellaneda, the Ministry of National Security ordered the transfer of the prefects to Crucecita, the neighboring neighborhood, at the request of the municipal government, according to sources in the portfolio by Sabina Frederic.
Fabián is about forty years old and is not called Fabián, but it is the name he chooses to be mentioned in the note, because he is afraid of what might happen to him if they recognize him. He agrees to be filmed, too, but with the reserved identity: “I feel unprotected. This is an ordeal. I live near the transas, further in, a few blocks from the avenue. My nephew, who is older, is in the robbery and I had to tell him to leave because he was going to get us into trouble. I can enter the neighborhood, but if someone comes from outside, they steal it and kill it. A fortnight ago, they took a pregnant woman and shot him. And you have cases of young kids like me, who were robbed and kicked on the floor to take off their shoes. Here at night is a constant of fights between drug gangs. ”
"I feel unprotected," says a neighbor of Villa Tranquila who asked to preserve his identity. (Marcelo Carroll)
"During the quarantine it was worse," he says. "The kids hit each other and were wounded or in a coma for a couple of months," he says. The neighborhood, about twenty blocks located on the banks of the Riachuelo, about a ten-minute drive from the Obelisk, is the jurisdiction of the Buenos Aires Police, but based on an agreement between Governor Axel Kicillof and Frederic, they were deployed on Friday, July 24. Agents from the Gendarmerie, the Prefecture and, to a lesser extent, the Federal and the Airport Police (PSA) in the neighborhoods most vulnerable to violence and crime. About a hundred prefects settled in Villa Tranquila until Thursday at 6 in the morning.
The transfer surprised both the agents, who received the order from the Ministry of National Security, and the neighbors. For Fabián, what comes to the neighborhood if there is no more police "is going to be screwed". “Crucecita is a more middle class neighborhood. The impression it gives me is that they are taking care of nobody there, ”he says . Since the quarantine began, he receives the Family Income for Emergency (IFE) and received merchandise from the municipality of Avellaneda. "For me, the State is present here," he clarifies. But the Prefecture I prefer to be here. Here, at least, they made them not steal, kill or hurt anyone. But now, we went. This is now going to be a wave of constant robberies. ”
Villa Tranquila is a popular neighborhood in Avellaneda, ten minutes from the Obelisk. (Marcelo Carroll)
Avellaneda is one of the 30 municipalities of the Conurbano in which the joint operation is deployed. Of the 7,500 federal force agents in the AMBA , sources from the National Security Ministry said, some 3,000, who were assigned to almost permanent locations, were redistributed . That is to say, that at certain times they are sent to mobile operations for crime prevention according to the most critical areas and the moments of greatest circulation, such as early morning and night, when people leave and arrive at their homes. Meanwhile, authorization controls to circulate in quarantine are maintained at strategic control points such as accesses to the City. In addition, some 1,500 are available as “mobile back-up”, as a wildcard resource that is transferred according to specific needs.
Villa Tranquila is a popular neighborhood in Avellaneda, ten minutes from the Obelisk. (Marcelo Carroll)
For the Darío Santillán Popular Front, with a strong arrival in the Avellaneda party, "the presence of the security forces in the popular neighborhoods is a very delicate discussion." Consulted by Clarín , the organization highlighted that it has repeatedly denounced the abuse by the forces of boys and girls above all, or to families who are in very vulnerable economic and social conditions. Along these lines, he pointed out that "the problem is when these repressive practices, in addition to existing, come to grips with political complicity" and relativized that "it is also true that the presence of the security forces, whether from the province or federal, generates in the territories a climate of control or security that must be understood that for the neighbors that helps ”.
According to a Clarín registry , so far this year and until last weekend, there have been at least 74 homicides linked to robberies in the Province of Buenos Aires. Lucas Adrián David Barrios (18) was riddled with 18 gunshots in Villa Tranquila by a Federal agent . The police said that he went to buy a video game console, he found Barrios and, at that moment, another young man with a gun appeared and was assaulted. The family of the deceased denounces that it was an "easy trigger" case since Barrios was unarmed. The agent was released. "He received a shot for each year of life," summarized his father, César Barrios.
The prefects patrolled on foot through the corridors and interior areas of Villa Tranquila. (Marcelo Carroll)
A mobile from the Bonaerense stops in front of a rubber store. This Friday morning, a single patrol of that force is touring Villa Tranquila , police sources confirmed to Clarín . In the morning, neighbors say, they arrested a thief who was trying to escape in a stolen vehicle. "This area is tremendous," says Adrián, a Dock Sud neighbor who works in the neighborhood. "Prefecture should have stayed, because here does not reach a single mobile phone from Buenos Aires, " he says.
Sources from the Ministry of National Security confirmed that the transfer of the Prefecture from Villa Tranquila to Crucecita "is a request from the mayor, which is channeled through the Ministry of Security of the province, which raises the requirement to the Ministry of National Security and then this change is made ”.
The residents of Villa Tranquila ask that the Prefecture return to the neighborhood. (Marcelo Carroll)
In a press release issued this Friday, the Municipality of Avellaneda clarified that "the organization of preventive operations is carried out within the framework of the permanent coordination table, composed of those responsible for the different forces and the Secretariat of Citizen Security of this municipality, in charge of preparing the Comprehensive Security Plan for the Avellaneda party. "
The Security Plan, points out the newsletter, "is built from the maps of crimes, contraventions, violence and conflict, taking into account the events reported, those reported by the 911 emergency system and the concerns of our neighbors." . Along these lines, he explained that there was "an increase in events that occurred during the first fortnight of July, especially those related to property crimes, which led to the modification of the devices towards the most affected areas."
Federal forces were carrying out patrol tasks this Friday in the Crucecita neighborhood of Avellaneda. (Luciano Thieberger)
Jorge (64) speaks with two prefects on the corner of Don José de San Martín square, where one of the fixed bases for the operation of the force in the Crucecita neighborhood is located . He tells them that he is in dialogue with the Municipality so that they install a neighborhood alarm, which connects with the 1st Police Station of the Buenos Aires Police, and asks them to approach Estanislao del Campo and Antofagasta, where there was an entrance in a house. "And on Monday, there in front, a girl's car was stolen , " he tells them and explains that "it is a complicated area because they have a direct exit to escape quickly."
Federal forces monitor a plaza in Crucecita, Avellaneda. (Luciano Thieberger).
"The neighborhood is now complicated with quarantine," he says. "I lived 40 years ago here and we never had insecurity problems," he tells Clarín . But now we have problems that are everywhere. I have my mother in Villa Obrera, in Lanús, and it is the same, because the mask covers everything. As much as you put a camera to a meter, you see the eyes nothing more. Hopefully this will be fixed. ”
As in Villa Tranquila, Crucecita assigned a total of one hundred prefects divided into three eight-hour shifts. "There are 40 troops in the morning and afternoon shifts that span from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and at least 20 troops at night," says Chief Prefect Pedro Ramírez, who until four weeks ago participated in four months of vehicle control over the Pueyrredón Bridge.
The agents are divided into eight groups, he details. There are 4 that are on mobile phones and between four and five groups of "walkers" who patrol on foot.
The operations are mobile and as of this Friday they moved from Villa Tranquila to Crucecita. (Luciano Thieberger).
Officials are asking for a driver's license, document and authorization to drive in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike the controls by Covid-19, the prefects upload both the patent and the document number to the Federal Police Communications System (Sifcop), which allows them to see the background and if the car has, for example, a kidnapping order .
In Crucecita, Ramírez describes, "there is a lot of movement, especially on the issue of bus stops , and we must be careful about the issue of the motojet model , according to what people tell us." The neighbors, assures the prefect, received in a positive way the arrival of the operation: "They tell us that it was a quiet neighborhood and that lately, because of the quarantine, this type of movement has been seen a lot."
Vehicle control on Avenida Roca y Espora, in the Crucecita neighborhood, Avellaneda. (Luciano Thieberger).
Invite Clarín to get into a van to visit some checkpoints. The mobile, like the rest of those of the Prefecture by decision of the Ministry of National Security, has pasted on the glass a poster with the photo of Facundo Astudillo Castro, the young man last seen on April 30 in Pedro Luro, in which Anyone with information is invited to call 134.
In Villa Tranquila, says the prefect, "the staff had to be more alert." While in Crucecita, from any point there is visibility, "you can see 200 meters from where you are", Villa Tranquila "has some corridors that we had to be very careful when driving," he explains. The neighbors, however, expressed the same problems to them: the increase in insecurity due to quarantine. While they were in the area, there were no arrests, he reports: "Nothing, in the six days that we were there, there was no type of shooting."
GL