Officers from the Simon Bolivar Municipal Police (Polisimonbolívar) arrested Luis Rafael Rodriguez Tiapa (24 years old) and Paulita Josefina Flames Rojas (41 years old), who were abusing and forcing three children to beg for money on the streets.
The information was released by the president of the police institution, General Commissioner José Ferrer, who explained that an official from the Council for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (CPNNA) appeared at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Service, accompanied by a 65-year-old citizen and her three grandchildren aged 12, 10 and 9, reporting that the children were victims of physical and verbal violence by their stepfather and mother.
The police chief reported that the children said that their mother (Flames Rojas), along with their stepfather (Rodríguez Tiapa), took them out to the patio of their house and made them kneel on tin sheets while they beat them with cables and belts, and then forced them to go out into the street to ask for money.
Ferrer said the children were taken to a health center where they were evaluated by a doctor, because they had visible bruises in different regions of their body, such as legs, knees, face and head.
He said that the arrest was made by the police commission on the main street of Tronconal V in Barcelona, where the couple was located and after being ordered to stop, they were arrested, and then transferred to a custody room and deprived of their liberty, located in the Brisas del Mar sector.
Ferrer said the couple was placed at the disposal of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
