The experts investigating the robbery suffered in the school number 9 “Genaro Berón de Astrada” from the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, from where they stole 185 computers and left the gas tap openthey raised positive traces but did not confirm if they serve to establish the identity of the criminals who assaulted the establishment, police sources reported on Tuesday.
The vandalized school is located at El Salvador 4037, between Avenida Medrano and Francisco Acuña de Figueroa, a place of constant traffic and surrounded by bars and restaurants.
The institution is located in the Plaza Unidad Latinoamericana and it is a building “very vulnerable if no measure is taken since they can enter from any of its four sides,” Diego Martínez Madrid, a member of the school’s cooperative, remarked in dialogue with Télam. and father of two first and fifth grade boys.
with posters of “No to robberies” Y “No to vandalization” and demands for greater security, students, families, teachers and directors of the school held a symbolic hug to the establishment this Tuesday morning to denounce repeated cases of destruction and theft of materials that they have been suffering.
The director of the school, Cecilia Neronetold Télam during the hug that, on the morning of this Monday, when the personnel from the morning shift entered, “He found the school violated and with some belongings that were not there.”
City of Buenos Aires | Embrace a school in Palermo to protest the theft of 185 netbooks and destructionhttps://t.co/epStnDKoq6
– Telam Agency (@AgenciaTelam) November 29, 2022
According to what he said, the thieves took 185 computers, broke windows in the media room where computers and audiovisuals are taught, broke things, the children’s work, books, and also left the gas and alcohol tap open.
“This is being investigated by the scientific police”accurate.
After reporting the robbery, the experts worked at the scene and managed to raise some traces that could help clarify the fact, police sources said.
“Luckily the cameras that the boys use to film were not there,” he added, because in a previous robbery, three months ago, they had broken into the door and taken the cameras, which were partially replaced by the Buenos Aires government “less than of one month”.
Holding hands, the students and the rest of the educational community sang the national anthem and went around the school accompanied by applause.
“The Ministry of Education is acting. Security cameras cannot be put up for the children. We have a camera in the corner. We are going to ask for alarms,” the director concluded.
The case is being investigated by Santiago Marquevich, National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor No. 15, and was described as “aggravated robbery with escalation.”
The thieves stole 185 computers and left the gas tap open.
The police personnel found that the door of the first basement, where the dining room is located, was violated as well as one of the windows in the art room, and there was a lack of netbooks that were stored in four metal cabinets in the sector of the upper floor classrooms; and CPU and study materials, they specified.
In addition, around 30 packs of long life milk were missing.
The police sources indicated to this agency that, according to the directors, when they arrived at the place, the classrooms were locked with keys and the cabinets inside were empty.
In recent months there have been thefts of materials in different establishments, such as the Adolfo Van Gelderen Elementary School No. 26, at the beginning of this month; at School No. 8 of school district 10 and Escuela Normal Superior No. 1 “Presidente R. Sáenz, around the end of September.
“We are concerned about the number of robberies and acts of vandalism that take place in schools in different areas of the city of Buenos Aires,” said Natalia Mitili, a reference from the Union of Education Workers (UTE), present during the symbolic hug to the establishment.
“It is important that we are vigilant and vigilant because there are consequences of not having more landlords, assistants who helped with the security of the schools and who accompanied the management of the school,” he added.
Regarding the repeated situations of insecurity in schools, Militi stated that “it is a pity, especially for the children’s materials, such as the computers that cost so much to obtain in CABA, which were stopped being delivered during the macrismo” and that “both contribute” in the learning processes.
After the hug, the General Director of Schools of the GCBA, Fabián Capponi, appeared at the institution to talk with the directors.
According to Martinez Madrid, the official promised in front of the families present – who sought him out to talk – that “there will be a police guard as of today and that the school enters a program that consists of shielding a classroom with more security and cameras to keep things of value as a palliative measure, despite the fact that cameras cannot be installed in schools due to a matter of privacy”.
Martinez Madrid pointed out that the school does not have a landlord because he retired and “there is a decision by the City Ministry of Education not to replace someone, but to take another measure such as a night watchman, a security camera or an alarm.”
In addition, the families saw that “there is an illegal market for these computers in Mercado Libre.”
During the day, fathers and mothers also questioned the decision of the Buenos Aires Government not to personally deliver the Sarmiento Plan notebooks to students since 2018 and to establish that they must remain in schools.
Sources from the City’s Ministry of Education confirmed to Télam that this Monday and Tuesday ministry personnel approached the institution to ensure that “the school files a complaint and begins the process of replacing everything stolen.”
Regarding the measures to be taken, from the ministry they added that in some schools they are installing alarm systems, and setting up protected spaces under lock and key to store electronic material.
Meanwhile, regarding the installation of cameras in schools, they specified that it is not allowed because it is an issue “judicialized by the unions.”
In turn, regarding the lack of a landlord in educational institutions, from Education they pointed out that “the presence of a landlord is not a guarantee that something like this will not happen”, because “more than 70% of the schools that suffered robberies had a landlord and in some cases they even end up accused and suspected of facilitating the robberies”.
“Above all -added the Buenos Aires government sources- in those schools where the landlord is the only person who has the key to the institution -they clarified- or to the places where technology is kept and the theft occurs without forcing doors, locks and windows”.
Finally, from the ministry they recognized that the theft of computers “is happening” and pointed out that it is a matter “judicialized” and that “many computers have been recovered, but Justice is following it.”
The Buenos Aires Front of All demands from the GCBA a “security plan” in schools in the face of the wave of robberies
The block of the Frente de Todos in the Buenos Aires Legislature expressed this Tuesday its “concern” about the theft of 185 computers that occurred in a school in the Palermo neighborhood and demanded that Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s management prepare a “security plan for educational institutions ” against the reiteration of criminal acts in schools.
The statement was promoted by the deputy Claudia Neira as a result of the robbery at school 9 “Genaro Berón de Astrada”, whose educational community made a symbolic hug to the establishment on Tuesday in demand for greater security.
“For some time we have expressed the need to have a security plan in all educational institutions that contemplates the different building characteristics of each one of them,” Neira told Télam.
In this sense, he mentioned the analysis of “the reforms of its infrastructure, the alarm system, the presence of landlords or private security personnel”, however, he pointed out that “for all this there must be planning and none of this is is doing and meanwhile in the last year more than 1,000 computers have been stolen”.
“What began as sporadic events where some computers were stolen from certain schools, ended up transforming in the last year and a half into a spiral of thefts in dozens of institutions, each time more repeated and of greater magnitude,” he remarked.
For her part, the deputy of the Frente de Todos and vice-president of the Education Commission, María Bielli, maintained that “an approach in comprehensive terms and not isolated cases is important to demand a comprehensive security policy for schools so that these facts, like the one in Palermo, do not continue to happen”.
“It’s about prevention,” he added, noting that among the causes that generated “the systematic cases of theft in schools is the definition taken by the City Government authorities of not replacing the landlords of the establishments when they retire.” .
