It was midnight on Sunday and the tranquility in a
Ramos Mejía
neighborhood exploded with another case of
insecurity
: there were more than twenty shots and the screams of pain of one of the gunshot victims were shocking.
The result?
A couple of injured police officers and a dead thief.
“We heard about fifteen shots.
Crazy.
We turned off the lights and closed the curtains out of fear,” a neighbor described to the
TN
channel .
The moment he refers to is the one that occurred hours before, at 11:50 p.m., in Berón de Astrada at 600: an attempted theft of a high-end car by several thieves from a couple of police officers.
It is presumed that it was a broadcast robbery and that the assailants did not know that they were two federal police officers who were on board the white Audi A4 that they wanted to steal, according to the investigation by prosecutor Claudio Fornaro, of the Functional Instruction and Investigation Unit. La Matanza Intentional Homicide Trial.
It was almost twelve at night when a dark Ford Focus stopped in front of the house where this couple of police officers were leaving.
As soon as the victims got into the Audi, the other car suddenly braked and four armed robbers got out.
Ten seconds later, the first of a hellish string of gunshots was heard.
The recording of several neighborhood security cameras shows the sequence and the escape of the assailants.
Both police officers were injured: the man was hit in the chest by one of the shots;
the woman, in one hand and one leg.
After being transferred to the Balestrini hospital, both confirmed having used their service weapons to defend themselves.
According to sources, both were out of danger and collaborating with the investigation.
Meanwhile, prosecutor Fornaro considered that it was an act of self-defense, so he did not take any restrictive measures against him.
The result for the thieves was mixed: four were able to escape – the driver of the car, who never got out, and three accomplices who got out to commit the robbery – but one died.
He was shot in the abdomen, back and legs.
They transferred him to the Güemes hospital in Haedo, where they confirmed his death.
His name was
Carlos Ariel Calderón, 25 years old.
He was from El Palomar and had a criminal record for robbery
.
“Last Friday,” added the woman who spoke before the cameras this Monday morning, “exactly the same thing happened: a neighbor came out of her house and they put a gun to her head.
They searched his car, his backpack, his cell phone...
Clarín
reported in January and March of this year about the growing insecurity in Ramos Mejía: some of the neighbors counted five or six daily robberies, from entrances and searches to theft of cars and motorcycles.
While investigating, two issues also already revealed by this newspaper are being weighed: a motive and a type of robbery.
On the one hand, the vehicle they tried to steal from the police couple is an Audi A4, considered high-end, a
favorite target of many thieves due to the cost of car parts
, a situation that is conducive to the growth of a parallel market. , clandestine purchase and sale of auto parts.
On the other hand, Ramos Mejía is an area that, like several others most harassed by insecurity, is surrounded by accesses through which thieves can escape easily and quickly.
Another fact that is repeated in this case of insecurity as in several others is that the Ford Focus in which the criminals were moving during Sunday night was
discarded in Fuerte Apache
, Tres de Febrero district, so it could be presumed that It was also stolen and used to commit other crimes.
This case joins other recent ones in which police officers are assaulted.
In Merlo, on Saturday night, a plainclothes officer killed a 19-year-old thief to prevent him from robbing him.
On the same Saturday, but during the early hours of the morning, another officer killed an 18-year-old thief and injured two others - ages 14 and 16 - in the San Telmo neighborhood, after they tried to steal his car.
EMJ