After the incident that occurred between some well-cared-for people and a municipal police officer for asking that people be allowed to park freely, the Municipality of Panama has started operations to attack this problem at its root, the director in charge of municipal security, Luis Huertas, explained to us how They will try to solve this problem
According to Huertas, the problem is well-rooted in the main public parking lots in the capital: “These people violently hijack public spaces, there is no entity granting public spaces to take good care of yourselves, when a parking lot is located in a profitable place, it is no longer a homeless person controls it, a criminal who hijacked the space to rent it controls it, the only way to control this problem is to be an obstacle for these gentlemen, we have taken the same person more than 10 times before a justice of the peace and He withdraws from the place where he was exercising good care, this is giving results, slowly but surely and we want to increase the operations with more units and that the national police join us “
On the effectiveness of the justice of the peace when these people are brought to them on several occasions, Huertas believes that the perception of the justices of the peace towards these people must be changed: “First we must overcome the perception of the judge that the person we are bringing before he is not homeless, but a delinquent, after having received a warning, fines and if you do not pay the fines, in theory the judge can order his arrest”
According to Huertas, the well-cared for manage to make good money at the cost of extortion asking for money in those places: “We calculate an amount of 200 to 300 dollars a day, they receive that money because the community is scared, because they They control the area.”
The activity of well-care is prohibited and is typified in article 151 of the penal code that says who through violence, intimidation or serious threat to procure or procure to a third party an undue profit or any other benefit forces another person to make a patrimonial disposition , to provide information that harms a third party will be punished with prison from 5 to 10 years, said Huertas.
