10/20/2020 10:44 AM
Clarín.com
Police
Updated 10/20/2020 11:57 AM
Esteban Nicolás Lagos (28) and Roberto Juan Bonifacio (43)
shared part of a collective trip that ended in tragedy.
They were coming back from working in a unit on line 100. There were -at least- five other people on top of the bus before the shooting started.
Two thieves got in to steal, used a passenger as a human shield and ran into Esteban Lagos, a uniformed Federal police officer who called out.
“These two guys make me stop.
Go up one, the other took a little while, but then he went up and there he armed himself.
He didn't tell me anything.
In less than 5 or 6 meters of travel, he said
'well, they are all given away'
and began to shoot to kill.
They went up for the fun of it to kill.
It can't be that we do 5 or 6 meters and they came in to shoot, "said Pablo Ramírez (45), the bus driver.
According to the driver, Lagos called out and identified himself as a policeman to try to reduce the two thieves, who got out of the unit after shooting and stole the officer's regulation weapon.
The incident occurred at 11:40 p.m. on Monday on Vieytes Street, between Quinquela Martín and Suárez, in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Criminals murdered a federal police officer and a passenger during an assault in Barracas.
Photo Maxi Failla
In the shooting, they wounded the Federal agent, the street sweeper and two other passengers.
Lagos was transferred to the Churruca Hospital, where he died around 1 in the morning.
Bonifacio died shortly after arriving at the Argerich.
The two criminals were unharmed and escaped from the unit after stealing his regulation 9mm caliber pistol from the shot police officer.
After the assault and the shooting, the driver drove the bus to the door of the 4D neighborhood police station of the City Police, where he asked for help and from where the transfers of the shot took place.
During the shooting, in addition to the fatal shots at the policeman and the street sweeper,
two other passengers were injured.
Federico S., 34, who was admitted with a gunshot wound to his leg and was already referred to the Bazterrica Clinic for his social work.
And Christian B., 30, with a gunshot wound to the foot.
Esteban Lagos had been a
policeman since November 2016
and worked as a surveillance
officer
above the Miter Train formations.
It was in Retiro that he took the bus on line 100 to return to his home in Ezpeleta, in Quilmes.
He had two children
, one of them a baby just a few months old.
He received three bullet wounds: one in the neck, one in the forearm and the other in the back.
Los Lagos are a family of federal police officers: the father is a sergeant and the brother, an agent.
At Bonifacio's house, neighbors and fellow workers of the street sweeper came to accompany the family.
Photo Maxi Failla
For his part, Bonifacio
almost never went to work in a group
, he used his motorcycle or Uber to return at dawn, around 3, when he finished his shift in the City of Buenos Aires.
But, due to the rain, this Monday he decided to use the bus and leave the motorcycle.
Boca fan and with more than a decade working as a street sweeper, he was fatally shot when the two thieves went up to steal.
He lived in Sarandí, Avellaneda, along with his wife Graciela (40) and their two children, Juan (18) and Milagros (21), who gave Bonifacio two grandchildren and is studying to become a nurse.
The last few months had been very hard for the family, as his mother-in-law died of coronavirus and his wife managed to recover from that disease.
The case is investigated by the prosecutor Martín López Perrando, of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office 12.
"They went up to kill"
Pablo Ramírez is the driver of the line 100 unit
where the shooting took place in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Barracas.
And his story is shocking.
“These two guys make me stop.
Go up one, the other took a little while, but then he went up and there he armed himself.
He didn't tell me anything.
In less than 5 or 6 meters of travel, he said 'well, they are all given away' and began to shoot to kill.
They went up for the fun of it to kill.
It cannot be that we do 5 or 6 meters and they entered to shoot, "said the 45-year-old man.
Esteban Lagos, federal police officer killed during a robbery in Barracas.
“Thanks to the police, we are all telling it,”
Ramírez graphed, highlighting the attitude of the agent, who tried to stop the actions of the two criminals.
“When the shooting started, I ducked with the bus in motion.
And every time they shot, I touched to see if they hit me.
Not know what to do.
I opened the door and the first one jumped out.
I closed it again because I thought they had both gone down.
The other came, pointed at me and said 'open me, open me'.
And because of my nerves I couldn't open the door ”, he continued with his story.
The driver said that he had been working on that line for 13 years, that he had once suffered a robbery, "but not like this."
"They went up for the pleasure of killing," insisted the bus operator, who also confirmed that the thieves, who are intensely wanted, only stole the service weapon of the murdered agent.
"There were 20 seconds of terror. My family is afraid, they are scared. They did not go up to steal, directly to kill. There is insecurity," the driver closed.
Lagos is the 21st police officer killed so far this year
according to a survey carried out by
Clarín
.
In the Province, 15 of the crimes of members of the security forces occurred.
The numbers indicate the La Matanza party leads that statistic, with five murders of agents.
In the rest of the municipalities that registered cases, there was one: Almirante Brown, Florencio Varela, Lanús, Lomas de Zamora, Pilar, Quilmes, Esteban Echeverría and Zárate.
And the latter, that of Palavecino, in San Martín.
The City adds three cases and La Plata, one.
Between Ríos, Santa Cruz and Tucumán, each province with a case as well.
GL
Look also
The dramatic story of the bus driver where the police were murdered: "They went up to kill for fun"
Double crime above a bus in Barracas: two thieves killed a policeman and a passenger