For the residents of Parque Rodó and Punta Carretas, the homicide of Marcelo Demestoy in the Ta-TaIt was an unfortunate deviation from a myriad of crimes that they say they suffer from day to day.
“Sometimes I can’t even go out in the truck at night”, “he’s very lonely, very abandoned”, “the lights in the park look like candlelights”, These are just some of the comments that residents of the area make among themselves while they wait for the arrival of the Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, and the court prosecutor, Juan Gómez. Finally, the Montevideo Police Chief, Mario D’Elía, the new director of Coexistence and Citizen Security, Matías Terra, and the advisers Andrés Capretti and Edison Casulo were also present.
Although the motive was the murder of Demestoy, it quickly led to the situation in the neighborhood: “Very little patrolling”, broken windows, people sleeping on the street and violent robberies that have occurred in the last ten years. For almost three hours, more than 50 residents – who filled the Club Defensor Sporting barbecue area to such an extent that almost a dozen had to listen standing up – spoke and listened to the authorities present.
A middle-aged woman said that before the pandemic she was assaulted with submachine guns and that her teenage son’s friends “They steal their mushrooms once a week.” Another, slightly older, recounted that “neighbors have been dragged by a gold chain.”
“It is impassable. You do not know what can happen to you,” they repeated on different occasions. “To the Farmashop, to the Kinko, it’s scary to go to those places. I don’t send my teenage children anymore,” agreed others.
Although most of those present were middle-aged or older adults, there were also a few young people who wanted to intervene. A teenager conveyed his problem.
–I go to the Zorrilla High School and to cross the park you have to run. There are people missing first for not crossing the park. They take drugs, they come out as if from under the tiles,” he told the minister. The court prosecutor was especially concerned about this issue.
Heber said they were going there to listen and take notes. He expressed his concern because the neighbors affirmed that there are no patrols and that there are areas, such as under the Sarmiento bridge and Artigas boulevard, that are “no man’s land.”
Despite the fact that several neighbors conveyed that they understood that the issue “was complicated” and that the drug “has wreaked havoc”, they reiterated their request to intensify control and thus “be able to live in peace”:
“Five years ago my house was robbed. I locked myself up. They took a bicycle from me, with the clothes line and the roller. They are entering through the center of the block. The solution will continue to be to have more protection” , valued one of the women who intervened.
The neighbors asked for more patrolling and more video surveillance cameras, but they also insisted on reinforcing controls. One even asked for the raids to return, which caused Heber to laugh and request rectification: “Controls, you say?” To which the man replied that although this is associated with the dictatorship, the important thing is not the name but that the persecution intensifies.
But it was not the only time, a woman indicated, generating the applause of the neighbors, that the only solution is a “strong hand”.
– I am a man of law and I say a fair hand – the court prosecutor told him when asked why “delinquents were released”.
“And I am human,” the woman replied.
In addition, a man who identified himself as a member of the National Party asked to modify the Constitution to install life imprisonment.
A woman with a Caribbean accent, and who later said she was Cuban, said that she has a business and had two “incidents” in one year. She stressed that the police “come quickly” but here “there is no respect for authority.” “There is a lack of a strong hand. When the police take them off the porch, they come and piss it. There is a need for tougher laws. I come from a place that is not right, but where there are repercussions, there is fear“, he added.
They also complained about the number of people who live on the street and who, according to what they said, “demand” money from them. “On my block there is a character from six or seven years ago who harasses people to give him money. 500 pesos or 1,000. That guy is the one who delivers the vehicles (…) they kick your car until you hit him 200 pesos,” said one of them.
In this sense, they valued that the law of urgent consideration has been “a catalyst for change”, but one of the neighbors ended up wondering if the article that prohibited the improper occupation of public spaces is in force. He read the article, which indicates: “Whoever (…) occupies public spaces camping or spending the night there, will be ordered by the corresponding departmental, municipal or police authority to leave immediately and to desist from their attitude. remain or persist, will be punished with a penalty of seven to thirty days of community work provision “.
The man stated that in March he filed a complaint with the Ministry of Social Development for a person sleeping on the sidewalk of his house and they answered that “the person does not agree to be interviewed.” “‘Not one person lost’, close the Mides email”he ironized.
A man who said he was a lawyer and a professor at the University of the Republic maintained that although he understands and shares the indignation of the neighbors, he was interested in highlighting that “There can be legitimate defense, citizen arrest but not justice by one’s own hand”.
–“They approach me and I break their head” – said a man of about 25 years in a low voice.
Police chief numbers
D’Elia indicated that his intention was not to argue with the neighbors and asked them to report each fact that arises because the patrol cars are assigned according to the heat map of the crime.
However, he stressed that the sectional 5either and 10ma They were one of the most people arrested and managed to charge in 2022. The first section had 5,062 charges last year. Despite the fact that he values it as an achievement, he maintained: “We still need it.”
of 25 sectionals in Montevideo, the 5ta and the 10ma They are ranked 17th and 20th in the ranking of sectionals with the most robberies, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Regarding the case of Demestoy, he assessed that despite the sad event, the first patrol car arrived 3 minutes after they received the first call and the second one a minute later.
“Tension that the area experienced due to the murder of Marcelo in TaTa, which was terrible. A very large deployment of all the police to capture the attackers. There are lines of investigation that I cannot disclose. I was in contact with the family. When a person dies For us, a worker is terrible. When you are linked to crime, I don’t want to minimize it, but there is a possibility that it will happen,” said the Interior Minister.
