October 21, 2024, 4:00 AM
October 21, 2024, 4:00 AM
On March 23, a 16-year-old minor fulfilled his dream of participating for the first time as a volunteer in the population and housing census in Santa Cruz. It was 11 in the morning when he had finished censusing several houses on a street and was preparing to start another street of homes, when he was attacked by motorcyclists armed with knives. They beat him, they snatched his backpack with census material, they stole his belongings and they abandoned him.
The incident led to a police mobilization that later captured the motorcyclists, they were sent to jail, but they were released by decision of the 14th investigating judge of the Pampa de la Isla María Alejandra Menacho Melgar, who declared the criminal action extinguished. and the archive of works. The ruling was described by the Prosecutor’s Office as a disregard for the safety of a minor, his life, and leaving a state case unpunished by considering that the victim was a volunteer census server.
The story of the minor census taker is recorded in a file prepared by the Special Force to Fight Crime (Felcc) and the Prosecutor’s Office.
The census taker was in the Nazareno neighborhood of the Los Cusis area at the end of Virgen de Luján Avenue. “I was taking a census in my area and when I finished my street I had to go to another street. I stopped under a tree to write down, when a black and white motorcycle appeared and it was with two men.
One got out, hit me on the head and face, they stole my backpack with material and my cell phone and the motorcycle escaped,” he said. The teenager recovered and got home as best he could, asking his father for help, who reported everything to the Police.
After patrolling, the Police managed to stop the motorcycle with the subjects on Virgen de Cotoca Avenue. The perpetrators of the assault, identified as Jorge David Aponte and Adrián Orihuela Roca, were arrested. Then in the San Jorge area, the agents recovered the census material from a dumped garbage can. The assailants turned out to be the perpetrators of another aggravated robbery in the same area of a young woman who also worked as a volunteer in the census.
They were presented at a press conference by Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo and considered highly dangerous. Forensic doctors certified the victim’s disability due to the attack by the assailants. In an identification parade, the assailants were recognized by the teenager and the Prosecutor’s Office charged them with aggravated robbery and criminal organization. Judge María Alejandra Menacho Melgar ordered his detention for 30 days in Palmasola.
However, on June 19, the defendants presented a request to extinguish the sentence to the judge with the argument that the value of the cell phone that was stolen from the teenager was returned. The judge held the virtual hearing, ordered conciliation and extinguished the criminal action and the file of records. He argued that there was an agreement, a withdrawal, conciliation and that the trial against the assailants was not appropriate. That same day he issued the freedom orders in favor of the subjects.
The Prosecutor’s Office opposed the ruling and presented the judge with documents proving that the defendants have a history of aggravated robbery and family and domestic violence. Furthermore, the Prosecutor’s Office argued that this was an assault by highly dangerous people who did it against a teenager who served the State.
In this case, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, a conciliation was never appropriate, worse the withdrawal due to the return of a cell phone, leaving it free and extinguished. A case was left unpunished, a minor protected by the state and free assailants with multiple records were left in total insecurity,” said the Prosecutor’s Office.
However, a tax commission filed an immediate appeal to reverse the ruling issued by Judge Alejandra Menacho in favor of the defendants Jorge David Aponte and Adrián Orihuela Roca. The appeal hearing was admitted by the Departmental Court of Justice.
It was set for November 7 in the Second Criminal Chamber of member Edil Robles. The Prosecutor’s Office and the Felcc claim to not know the whereabouts of the motorcycle assailants. While the adolescent feels abandoned and afraid for his life.
