An agent of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) must be tried again for having shot dead a young man who was fleeing after having robbed a Chinese supermarket in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito in December 2016, judicial sources reported.
This is Carla Daniela Céspedes (28), who in November 2018 she had been acquitted for the crime of Ariel Martín Santos and will now be subjected to a new debate by decision of Chamber I of the National Criminal and Correctional Cassation Chamber.
The ruling of judges Daniel Morín, Gustavo Bruzzone and Horacio Días contradicted the majority decision of the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 14 that ordered the acquittal of the police, who was free throughout the entire process.
In that trial, prosecutor Fernando Klappenbach had requested in his plea that Céspedes be sentenced to 4 years in prison for “excessive performance of duty”, while the lawsuit, represented by the Legal Assistance and Sponsorship Program for Victims of Crimes of the Office of the General Defender of the Nation, required a life sentence for the crime of “aggravated homicide for having been committed in abuse of his function”.
The TOC 14 had sentenced the victim’s accomplice, Héctor Walter Corroncini, to 3 years in prison for the crime of “aggravated robbery”, which was confirmed in this second instance.
In the 48-page resolution -to which Télam had access-, Chamber I determined that “the arbitrariness of the ruling is palpable insofar as it is based on the sole will of the judges, based on a capricious interpretation of the evidence that, in turn, departs from the applicable law.”
The fact
Everything was recorded in the commercial security cameras, it happened on December 22, 2016 in the supermarket located on Estivao and Ramos Mejía streets, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito, where two thieves broke inlater identified as Corroncini and Santos, who stole money from a supplier who was charging for the delivery of merchandise.
Céspedes, who was inside the supermarket and had been working in the Police for six months, with his service weapon he began to chase and shoot the assailants when they were outside the store.
Corroncini escaped towards Ramos Mejía but Santos -who was unarmed- He was shot three times while trying to flee on a motorcycle. that he had left on the sidewalk a few meters from the door of the supermarket.
“The appellants are right in that they point out that the video images that captured the development of the event in its entirety make it impossible to sustain, even in a minimally reasonable way, that the conduct displayed by the police agent was affected by an erroneous perception of danger. imminent that would justify the use of lethal force,” said Judge Bruzzone in his opinion, which was supported by his colleagues.
for the magistrate“without taking any precautions, he barricaded himself in the middle of the sidewalk without seeking any effective cover –despite the fact that contrary to what is stated in the ruling, there were places where he could be safe- and he pointed his weapon at Santos, that in those particular circumstances he did not represent any danger because he was with his back to her, visibly unarmed and trying to get on his motorcycle to flee the place.
“After firing the four or five shots at Santos, the accused put the service weapon back in its holster, an attitude that is in no way consistent with that of someone who fervently believes in the existence of some other source of danger other than the of the subject in front of him, already lying on the ground and raising his hand in a clear request for mercy,” said Bruzzone.
According to the Chamber“what can be clearly seen in the video images is that at the time the shots were fired, there was no element or circumstance within the defendant’s field of vision from which she could reasonably infer any risk of unlawful aggression that warranted being repelled”.
In this way, Chamber I annulled the appealed decision, through which the acquittal of Céspedes was ordered, and ordered the remission of the case to a court made up of different judges so that a new trial could be held against the accused.
When TOC 14 acquitted the police, Santos’s mother yelled at him “you didn’t care” and “you killed him like a dog”, while the victim’s friends showed him photographs and warned him that they would not forget that face never.
The day after the verdict, Céspedes was received by Patricia Bullrich, then Minister of Security of the Nation, who at that time highlighted the Court’s decision because it laid “the foundations for a new paradigm regarding police action,” which was now challenged by the higher court.
