Nicolas Coppa
11/05/2020 7:46 PM
Clarín.com
Fame
Updated 11/05/2020 7:46 PM
A few hours after the violent episode of insecurity that he suffered at the door of
Radio Rivadavia
,
Baby Etchecopar
(67) answered
Clarín's call
.
"My phone explodes", he has the calm of someone who has already overcome this type of situation several times in his own flesh.
The most remembered (and the most tragic), in March 2012, when he shot himself with four criminals who entered his house and killed one of them.
The most recent, last year, when they put a revolver to his temple to steal a watch.
This time, two motorcycle jets intercepted him at the corner of Arenales and Larrea, in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, just after 2 in the afternoon, and they went in search of the same target: the journalist's Rolex.
Baby struggled with one of the thugs and they fell to the ground.
The shouting alerted a policeman who was in the area and caused the criminal who was on the motorcycle to flee.
The other criminal (a 35-year-old man) was arrested within a few blocks, thanks to the use of surveillance cameras.
The unsuccessful assault left a shoulder dislocation for Baby (that's why he will wear a sling for the next 20 days) and the semi-destroyed Rolex that will have to go through the paperwork of these instances until it returns to the hands of its owner.
The other trace is in Baby's voice.
Because behind its apparent tranquility hides the fury of someone who has long questioned security policies and what he describes as "total guarantees" in the levels of Justice.
"All the Larreta officials called me, who is going to call me from the Nation? They will surely call the prisoner to ask him if he is okay, if the police treated him well," Baby spits out with anger.
-You seem to be hardened in this, how did you tell your family?
-My wife is not in the country.
She traveled to Miami yesterday for a personal matter of a friend who is having a problem.
She called me desperate because the first thing they said was that they had taken me to the clinic by ambulance and that I was hospitalized.
The truth is that I was alone driving, it was difficult for me to pass the changes but I arrived well.
- Did they worry a lot?
-Yes, more than anything because of what was said.
But it is the second watch that has been stolen from me, a year ago I was robbed at the door of my house, in Martínez.
They identified the jet, found it, and escaped.
So when one of these things happens to you, you get up, you shake yourself, you notice how you are and you go home.
It's sad but that's the way it is, we are used to robbery.
-You maybe yes, but not your family.
-It could be ... But stop, because my children were robbed too.
And if you ask everyone, they robbed us.
It is already like a civic exercise every time you are busy: get up, see if they hurt you, see if you have a shot or something and go home to buy another watch.
Baby Etchecopar at the door of the San Isidro Clinic.
They suggested rest but he will continue working both in Radio Rivadavia and in A24.
Photo: capture.
-Is the watch that they wanted to steal very expensive?
-No, it's a common watch.
It is a rope Rolex, old and made of steel.
But it has a great affective value because it is the first Rolex that I had in my life and I am using it because I love it very much.
It's one of those watches that you get old, look at it and say: 'I'm going to die and I didn't use it.'
-Did someone give it to you?
-I gave it
to me, nobody gave me anything
.
I bought it working when I was 13, at that time it was very cool to wear a Rolex.
My dad couldn't buy it for me so I worked, worked and bought it.
What was he working on?
He sold T-shirts on the street in San Isidro.
"A rope, old man and made of steel", this is how Baby Etchecopar describes the Rolex watch that they tried to steal from him when the radio came out.
-How much is a watch like that worth?
- But for these kids it is not the value.
They give them 2 grams of marijuana and a joint, and they give it.
The other one that they toiled me was very expensive.
My first wife had given it to me before she left and it cost $ 8,500.
And these guys blow them up for $ 200!
-Are you going to change something in the way you handle yourself on the street?
-No.
This is news because I am known but there are 10 thousand guys that this happens to them every day.
We cannot live like this.
It cannot be that if the watch was a Rolex, or if you were robbed while walking in a late-model car or eating in Puerto Madero, the answer is "rightly".
Can't you do anything in this country?
Do you have to live locked up?
You are in another country with a Rolex and nobody looks at you, nobody cares.
-When you were struggling with the motochorro, did you think about the clock or your life?
"I was thinking of killing him, putting my hand to his throat and hanging him."
He wanted to see if he could reach his throat with his hand.
But the jet measured 1.80 meters and must weigh 120 kilos, what do you want me to do?
If I am a bird ...
Look also
The anger of Baby Etchecopar for the departure of Negro Oscar González Oro to Uruguay
Carolina Losada bleached what she thought of Baby Etchecopar before working with him
Baby Etchecopar found love and there are wedding plans
