Sergio Pozo Hernández, 30, died on Sunday February 26 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 rammed him while he was injured on the pavement, denounces 14ymedio his sister Luisa María Pozo Hernández.
“Many versions have been said about my brother’s death, but some are not real,” the woman details. “We have not even wanted to enter the social networks because information is being spread saying that a truck killed him or that he was the one who had stolen the belongings of a tourist who was in the Caletón Blanco campsite, and all of that is a lie.” .
Luisa María reels off the chronology of what happened. “I had gone with him and his friends to the campsite, we had even rented a truck, but I had to leave earlier because I have a little girl. Just as I was leaving I saw that the police had a young man arrested and they said that this was the a man who had stolen from a foreigner. In other words, long before what happened to my brother, they already had the thief.”
After being hit “in the face with the chair,” explains the sister, “another officer also hit him with a bench while he was already on the ground, but the boys who told me that have all been put in jail.”
Due to the robbery of the tourist, the police redoubled the controls at the exit of the campsite. “Sergio first went out to look for ice and then came back,” an eyewitness who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told this newspaper. “The first time he came out, a guard waved at him, but he didn’t stop; then he returned to bring the ice that he had bought in a nearby palate.”
The sister of the deceased explains that it is likely that Sergio Pozo did not stop because he was not wearing a helmet and he was not carrying his driver’s license either. After spending some time with his friends and family, most of the group got into a private passenger truck that they had rented, while the young man got on the motorcycle. “When he came out again, nothing more than the police officer saw him, he threw the chair at him. He did not make a sign or anything, he threw it at him without saying a word,” the witness clarifies.
After being hit “in the face with the chair,” explains the sister, “another officer also hit him with a bench while he was already on the ground, but the boys who told me that have all been put in jail,” says Luisa María. . “They took their cell phones and deleted the videos they recorded on the spot, there is even one where another police officer is seen trying to remove the chair from the crime scene to erase the evidence.”
It is not true, he explains, that he was run over by the truck with his friends, which was just behind his brother. He even continues, “the policeman tells the truck driver to follow his route and then he approaches my brother and hits him when he is already down on the road.”
“The boys who are now detained, at least five of them have already been sent to the Aguadores prison, were at the scene and saw how the policeman hit my brother, already injured by the chair and lying on the ground,” he says. “When they saw that, they began to throw stones” at the uniformed officer and “shouted ‘murderer’ at him.”
Luisa María regrets that they have nothing to identify the policeman who threw the chair at her. “The only thing I know is that I wouldn’t want them to cover things up, because they were just young people who had rented a truck to have a good time in a campsite,” the sister remarks. “They want to say that it was an action-reaction, like my brother was the culprit and attacked the policeman, but it was not like that and the witnesses confirm it. It was all premeditated. They hunted him down.”
“First they told me that the chair did not exist, then that the agent was sitting in the chair and never threw it away, then they told me that he only put the chair on the road to force him to stop, but none of that was the case.”
“Sergio was not a bandit. He did his little jobs, he was going to turn 31 in July, he liked to keep his motorcycle beautiful. Sometimes he loaded sand, he worked taking care of pigs but he was a calm person. Now they want to present him as a bandit but no It was none of that,” he says. Sergio’s body has already been buried, but they have not provided the family with any death certificate or the details of his death.
“The Military Hospital, where they took him already dying, they took him as if Miguel Díaz-Canel were there, even the doctor who treated him had to intercede with the police and ask that the family members be allowed to see the body. The one who entered was my father and a friend who dressed the corpse. It was very obvious that he was beaten,” he says.
Upon arriving at the hospital, after receiving the news that her brother had had “an accident”, Luisa María Pozo Hernández found that the first version of the police is that her brother had fled with the belongings of a tourist. . “They never imagined that I had witnessed the arrest of the real thief. So when I told them they started to change the story.” Shortly after they wanted to convince her that the police officer was sitting and Sergio “went up with the motorcycle”, a story that was also ruled out by the witnesses at the scene.
“The policemen have changed their version every time they talk to me. First they told me that the chair did not exist, then that the agent was sitting in the chair and never threw it away, then they told me that he only put the chair on the road to force him to stop, but none of that was the case,” concludes the sister, who calls for an in-depth investigation and punishment for the agent who hit Sergio Pozo.
“I was at the gate of the campground, about 50 meters away, and from there you could perfectly see the police checkpoint,” insists the witness. “It was a white and red metal chair, which hit him on the head and caused him to lose control of the motorcycle. He flew into the air on impact and fell flat on the ground.”
The motorcycle, which is in the name of Pozo’s mother, has not been delivered yet. Luisa María details with suspicion: “They say that they are doing an expert opinion on him.”
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