Crime of Lucas González: they ask for 6 years in prison for the police officer who planted the weapon

The officer Facundo Matías “Cachorro” Torres, 26 years old, is accused of having provided un prop weaponwhich was later located in the vehicle where he was traveling Lucas González, the young soccer player who was shot dead. This Wednesday, the prosecution requested a six-year prison sentence for the police officer.

Torres faces the charge of ”aggravated cover-up”as well as participation in crimes of ”ideological falsehood and illegal deprivation of liberty”. In June of last year, through one of the hearings for the trial, Hector Claudio Cuevas He declared that some of his colleagues in the force devised the plan to plant a toy gun in the car where Lucas and his friends were traveling, in order to demonstrate a ”confrontation”.

In this way, the prosecutor Sandro Abraldes He requested a six-year prison sentence for Torres, in addition to his disqualification for 10 years from exercising public functions and from carrying weapons. Likewise, he requested that the court declare that Lucas González and his friends were victims of institutional and police violence, ruling out participation in a confrontation.

Chronology of the case

On November 17, 2021, Lucas and his friends Joaquín Zúniga, Julián Salas and Niven Huanca were returning from the club to their respective homes in the San Eduardo neighborhood, in Florencio Varela. After stopping to buy at a kiosk, the Volkswagen Suran in which they were traveling was intercepted at the intersection of Iriarte and Vélez Sarsfield avenues by a Nissan Tiida from which three men got out. they pointed guns.

These people belonged to the City Police and were the inspector Gabriel Alejandro Issasithe senior officer Fabián Andrés López and the officer Juan José Nievabut they did not carry no type of identification. The young people believed it was a robbery, so they fled. There a chase began that ended with five shots fired from the police car, one of which hit Lucas González in the head.

Beginning of the trial

The trial in which the three police officers involved were accused as co-authors of the crimes of “homicide aggravated by having been committed with treachery, for pleasure, by racial hatred, by the premeditated collaboration of two or more people and by being committed by abusing their function or position by a member of a police force” started Thursday March 16.

Furthermore, others 11 troops were accused of concealment and torture towards the victim’s friends. Those involved are: Daniel Alberto Santana, inspector commissioner of the Neighborhood Communal Department 4 of Barracas; his colleague of the same rank Rodolfo Alejandro Ozán; the commissioners of that department, Fabián Alberto Du Santos, Juan Horacio Romero and Jesús Chocobar. Also Roberto Orlando Inca, from the Unit’s Summary and Brigade Division, the principal of Commune 4D, Héctor Claudio Cuevas; and the officers of the 4D Neighborhood Police Station Sebastián Jorge Baidón, Jonathan Alexis Martínez, Ángel Darío Arévalos and Daniel Rubén Espinosa.

In their statements, all the defendants agreed that they “acted in the line of duty.”

Statements from those close to the victim

At this stage, the victim’s parents and friends, who were with him at the time of the murder, testified. During her testimony, Cintia López, Lucas’ mother, stated that when she saw her son admitted to the hospital before dying, “he was unrecognizable” and noted that “five police officers They guarded him as if he were a criminal“.

On the other hand, Lucas’s three friends gave their testimony both in their capacity as witnesses to the murder as of victims. They all agreed that they were tortured and discriminated against by the Buenos Aires force. “They put us on the floor and handcuffed us.. They began to tell us that we were shitty blacks, little villeritos, and that people like us had to be shot in the head like they did to my friend,” said Salas, who was the driver during the attack.

“I see to my right that a vehicle is starting to lock us in, so I honked at him because I thought he was distracted. He finished locking me in and someone got out from the driver’s side with a gun, and I thought they were going to rob me. Then, starts shooting senselessly. I fly and climb a cord. I was clouded, I don’t know how many shots there were or what happened,” he concluded.