He Third non-commissioned officer, Luis Magallanesprosecuted for the death of the protester Eduardo Ruiz Sanz, known in the artistic world as ‘Trvco’ on October 15, regained his freedom and provided the first words regarding this unfortunate case.
“They have been the worst seven days of my life. It is very difficult for me, but thank God everything is being resolved,” he said at the beginning.
When asked how he felt during his detention, he said: “I have felt the worst, that the world is falling on me. I have felt that all of Peru was judging me without knowing what had happened, and I always told the truth, that I, furthermore, did not want to hurt anyone, I just wanted to save my life.”
He stated that he thought they were going to kill him that night: “From the moment they put the bottle in here where they sewed me, and I started to bleed, I felt my head start to get dizzy, I felt that if they grabbed me, they were going to kill me.”
“What they wanted was to kill me. From the beginning, when they grabbed me, they told me: ‘Kill that guy, burn that guy. What is he doing here undercover, burn him. That was in my mind,'” he explained in a video broadcast by Willax.
“They came to hit me, insult me and spit on me”
At another time, the agent said that the protesters spat on him, insulted him, and hit him.
“I felt that my life was in danger. I was afraid because apart from the fact that I was with my weapon, there was a person who wanted to take my weapon from me when it was on my waist and I was afraid because there were more than 90 to 100 people who were there, hitting me, attacking me, following me,” said the agent who remained hospitalized, because a bottle burst on his head and he received 14 stitches.
At another time, the non-commissioned officer is asked where the protesters identified him. To this question, the police officer responded: “From that same street, but almost in the middle of the block, to reach the Unión passage, they identify us there. They start throwing stones, bottles, sticks, everything at us.”
“What we do is run. To my bad luck, they came from another side to grab me in front of me. Thank God, my two companions managed to escape. They came from the front to hit me, to insult me, to spit on me, and what I wanted was just to get out of that place,” he said.
Likewise, he detailed what type of work they did in the area: “We were doing intelligence, intervention and capture of people who attacked the uniformed police officers, those who had Molotov cocktails.”
However, the uniformed man avoided commenting on the first words of the PNP commander general, Oscar Arriola, who initially pointed him out as the murderer and apologized for the crime of ‘Trvco’ on behalf of the institution.
As recalled, on October 16, Arriola, visibly embarrassed, declared: “The author of that shot is the third-rate non-commissioned officer Luis Magallanes” and clarified that the agent belonged to the Criminal Investigation Directorate and not to the Terna group.
“May God rest him in his glory, I apologize to his family on behalf of the 140,000 police officers,” he said before leaving the press conference.
On the other hand, Arriola also reported that Magallanes’ direct bosses were going to be separated.
“The legal leadership of the Public Ministry, as well as the administrative investigations, has decided to remove from office the generals who have direct influence, both in the function in charge of yesterday’s orders and the specialty on which a detailed investigation must be carried out,” he detailed that day.
