The struggle this Thursday between Ariel López Águila, a police officer from Caibarién, Villa Clara, and an alleged fugitive identified as Henry Negrín Bolaños, ended with serious injuries for the former and the death of the latter. Negrín, who was trying to evade justice in the company of another individual also with a search warrant, Armando Prieto, stabbed the agent with a knife and he, who was maneuvering to snatch it away, ended up wounding him in the neck.
This confirms it to 14ymedio Hilda, a neighbor of the Punta Brava popular council who managed to see both bodies before they were removed from the crime scene. The woman published a report of the incident on her social networks and quickly withdrew it for fear of reprisals from the Police. “The other subject, Prieto, was detained by the officers,” she says.
López’s patrol had been making a tour of the coastal area since Wednesday, after being alerted to the presence of Negrín and Prieto, who were fleeing from the Police, although the reason is not yet known.
Reports of violence on the island with the direct participation of police officers have increased in recent months
“Negrín had a criminal record and had been in prison. They knew him by the nickname of El Gorrión,” Hilda explains. In the clash with the police, Negrín pulled out a knife and attacked López, she adds, and because of the resistance she also received serious injuries. “In the late night they took the officer to the hospital so that he could be treated, but Negrín was already dead.”
“A short time later, more policemen arrived and some experts cordoned off the area,” he says. “They moved away the people who were watching,” including Hilda herself, who recounted what happened in the Revolico Caibarién Los Playeros Facebook group. López was admitted to the Santa Clara military hospital, where he underwent surgery.
Henry Omar Pérez, a communicator close to the ruling party, reported in their networks that the policeman was operated on in room 4 of the medical center, “for a medium-sized hemoperitoneum with a tear of the anterior rectus abdominis muscle and the round ligament of the liver.”
One of the most serious episodes occurred precisely in Santa Clara on July 1, 2022, when an agent shot at the young Zinédine Zidane Batista Álvarez
Pérez alleges that the agent himself informed him that his life was not at risk and that he is in the process of recovery, and that the action was part of the “surveillance and patrol activity” of the Police. He further confirmed that both Negrín and Prieto had “multiple criminal records.”
Reports of violence on the island with the direct participation of police officers have increased in recent months. One of the most serious episodes occurred precisely in Santa Clara on July 1, 2022, when an agent shot at the young man Zinedine Zidane Batista Alvarezwho was already handcuffed and defenseless.
Sergio Pozo Hernandez, another 30-year-old young man, also died in Santiago de Cuba after being beaten by a police officer who first threw a chair at him to force him to stop at a roadblock, at the exit of Caletón Blanco beach, and then attacked him while he was injured on the pavement. As in the case of Batista Álvarez, the family members regretted in an interview with 14ymedio that “everything was premeditated” by the attackers.
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