The Public ministry reported this Wednesday that the investigations they carried out determined the “criminal” responsibility of three police officers in the death of Richard Rafael Báez “Barber” in Santiago as a result of the blows he received while he was detained in a detachment in Cienfuegos.
He announced that he will request preventive detention, as a coercive measure against Captain Manolo Aquino, in charge of the Central Directorate of Criminal Investigations (Dicrim) in Cienfuegos; First Lieutenant Manuel de Jesús de la Cruz and Second Lieutenant Vladimir Joel Jerez Suárez.
The Attorney General’s Office accuses the agents of the National Police of “brutally” assaulting the victim “while they were detaining him and during the time they held him in the detachment of the Cienfuegos sector, in the Santiago Oeste municipal district, reports a Press release.
“The three incurred in the crimes of association of malefactors, homicide and robbery”, He said Public ministry. The agency revealed that it is currently investigating “several cases of police abuse.”
When the family of “El Pelotero” denounced that their relative had died in a hospital days after receiving a beating from the Police, they also complained that the agents had stolen the sum of 35 thousand pesos.
On several occasions they requested justice for his death, but it was not until the beating homicide of David de los Santos, in the detachment of the Naco expansion, of the National District, that his case was sent to investigate by the Attorney General of the Republic , Miriam Germán Brito, who stated that these events could not continue to occur in the country.
The death of José Gregorio Custodio in a police station in San José de Ocoa was also included in the investigation. Custodio, who was also beaten during his detention, died at the municipal hospital.
How did “El Pelotero” die?
According to the press release from the Attorney General’s Office, in the murder of Barber, on March 21, the defendants produced fatal blows to the victim when they arrested him in the middle of an operation they were carrying out. The day was held in the El Semillero Community, the file refers, according to the press release.
“It specifies that the victim was chased to his house and that he received multiple blows when he tried to reach the door of the house, while screaming and asking his father for help to try to save his life in the face of the attack by the acting police officers,” he details.
The document adds that while Báez was in the barracks, he denounced that the agents had stolen the sum of 30,000 pesos, the return of which he demanded, “but in return he received blows from the police agents.”
“The accused police officers even transferred the victim to the Cienfuegos hospital, where a doctor attended him after 6:00 in the morning of that day… who evaluated him and verified that Báez had lacerations in the area. right temporal bone and in both elbows, for which he reported pain.
For that reason, he gave Lieutenant Jerez Suarez an indication to apply an anti-tetanus agent, a cream and analgesics to the patient, as well as an AP and lateral skull X-ray, an indication that the accused hid, “adds the note.
The file affirms that, instead, they returned the accused to a cell in the detachment where they beat him again.
Later, they presented him to the medical examiner and to the prosecutor at the National Police headquarters and transferred him to the detention center that operates in the Palace of Justice in Santiago.
While in the center of the Palace of Justice, Báez convulsed and was transferred to the Estrella Ureña Hospital, located in front of the building, from where he was referred to the Cabral y Báez Regional Hospital.
While Báez was alive in Cabral and Báez, and due to proceedings of the Public Ministry, the medical examiner Iván Joel Guzmán, from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif), carried out an evaluation of the patient who, in the end, died as a result of the blows that the defendants gave him.
