SANTO DOMINGO.- President Luis Abinader stated this Friday that the police reform is already underway and guaranteed that although the institution cannot be changed overnight, the change will be made “regardless of the political cost.”
“Nothing and no one changes our firm decision to reform the Police. That is a responsibility that I have, and it does not matter the political cost it may have,” said the President when speaking to the press during a tour of the Inespre market in the Villas Agrícolas sector.
The president said that the police reform was delayed because its members were involved in the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that the conditions were immediately met, work began on the issue and unifying all the recommendations that had been in relation to the institution at the end of last year and already this year the Executive Commissioner for Police Reform was created.
He said that the policemen who are training now will hit the streets within a year. “We are going to start the changes, as you will see in the coming months.”
He argued that cases of police brutality such as those that have cost the lives of several young people after being beaten in police stations have occurred for decades “and the worst thing is that none of these cases were investigated, but now those responsible will have to pay for it.” ».
“The important thing is that there will be no cover-up like in the past,” Abinader said.
The president spoke in those terms in reference to the death of David De los Santos, who died last Sunday at the Darío Contreras hospital due to polytrauma caused, according to his relatives, by a beating he received in the aforementioned detachment.
He said that there are many police officers who have committed mistakes, who must be changed, but there are also many honest ones, “and these are the ones we must put in charge of the institution.”
