Santo Domingo.-The lawyer Miguel Diazlegal representative of the girl’s family Stephora Anne-Mircie Joseph11 years old, crudely explained what the videos captured by the cameras of the place where the minor drowned on a walk at the Hacienda Caballos del Leonardo Da Vinci Comprehensive Institute of Education in the city of Santiago (north).
Díaz described the images as shocking and assured that they expose a chain of serious omissions.
“The fact that you have to see it to believe it, something very heartbreaking,” he told the press when referring to the first minutes of the recordings.
He recalled that the result of the autopsy was already known, indicating that the minor died of mechanical asphyxiation due to drowningand stated that the videos corroborate that information, and ruled out that she had been drowned intentionally, but there was negligence.
The fall to the deep zone
According to Díaz, the cameras show the girl approaching the pool accompanied by other minors. He highlighted that it is an old and deep pool, with an unmarked slope that exceeds six feet.
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“What we could see and appreciate in the videos and what was heard is that the young Spéfora, who I was surrounded by many children of different ages, It enters the pool… It is a pool that we must highlight, since we already have measurements of more than six feet. It is an old pool, from which you take a step and fall and go and sink, because it has an unmarked slope. Then the girl is walking and in the same edition she takes a step and goes to a deep part,” he explained.
The lawyer described that, at that moment, the minor began to desperately ask for help.
“She begins to scream loudly, the screams can be heard. Imagine a camera with audio that is far away and you hear all those terrifying screams. She was asking for help, however, waving her hands and screaming.”
The children who witnessed the drowning
Díaz pointed out that several children were right in front of her when she began to sink.
“In front there are about six children who see her.they point out when she is drowning. They let him drown, they don’t sound a warning, they don’t say anything. And after she submerges, despite fighting, fighting for her life, they move from the place and go to another space in the pool,” Díaz said.
According to the attorney, none of the children present made an attempt to notify an adult or ask for help.
Lack of staff supervision
Another point that the lawyer highlighted was the inaction of one of the teachers or counselors at the educational center, who appears in the images while the minor was dying.
“Even when this is happening and she is guiding, one of the teachers or counselor, who is even subjugated here, passes by and does not look at any time, she is with a cell phone in her hand looking at her. And even though she screams, raises her hand, at no time does she look and goes and sits in a secluded place with another classmate… without ever looking there,” she said.
Díaz stated that the girl remained more than 30 minutes at the bottom of the pool.
“Didn’t they miss her in 30 minutes? In 30 minutes, no one asked about her, no one cared about her,” the lawyer questioned.
The body emerges and the confusion of other children
The lawyer explained that, after being submerged for so long, Stephora’s body partially rises to the surface due to the accumulation of water.
“She emerges from her body full of water and three children start, they think it seems like they bump into her when she is climbing up, they start to push her, believing that perhaps, in our opinion… they think that maybe she is playing something, and one who is bigger, more adult looking, starts to pull her, pull her, pull her until she sees so much time that she doesn’t react, she is surprised, they start to scream and then he tries to lift her up,” he explained.
It was at that moment that the adults present finally intervened.
“That’s where the people who were under his care appear, who were not even at the pool at any time,” he explained to the media after leaving the hearing where a coercive measure would be known against four employees of the study center, whose hearing was postponed at the request of the defense.
Nobody questioned the children
Díaz regretted that none of the minors present had been officially interviewed.
“None of the children were questioned.”
The lawyer concluded that The videos allow us to reconstruct the exact moment of drowning and reveal failures of supervision and serious omissions on the part of the responsible personnel.
The facts
The tragic death of the girl Stephora Anne-Mircie Joseph It happened on November 14 during an excursion to a ranch.
It is said that it was a group of 83 students who only had the support of three teachers.
Due to the event, the Public Ministry arrested the teachers Yris del Carmen Reyes Adamesadministrative director; Gisela Altagracia from Mercedes Gonzálezgeneral coordinator; Francisca Josefina Tavárez Vélez and Vilma Altagracia Vargas Morel.
In his request, the Public Ministry requests for each accused a fine of 50 million pesos, impediment to leaving the country and the placement of electronic shackles.
