“I certainly think there are more people involved,” assured the father of Lucas González, the teenager shot to death in November 2021 by a City Police brigade, after the arrest of another Buenos Aires agent –who is not charged in the case–, after being accused of “help plant the toy gun”, in the car where Lucas and his three friends were shot.
For Héctor González, “there are more people involved who were not charged” for his son’s crime. “This person was as involved and as guilty as the rest. For me, today there are 15 defendants,” he told Télam, about the officer Facundo Matias Torres, arrested this Saturday at his home in the Buenos Aires party of Lomas de Zamora.
“Thank God he played the role of dad and a human being, and Lucas played him. He himself said that he dreamed it, that he felt his breathing. He had no choice but to speak, remorse was driving him crazy, “said the father of the murdered teenager, referring to the statement of Hector Claudio Cuevas (50) –one of the defendants in the cover-up–, who during his statement in the trial accused Torres of having arrived at the scene of the crime on a motorcycle and collaborating with the officer Gabriel Issasi to plant the toy gun.
“I see a motorcycle arrive that depends on the commune, it was driven by officer Torres, who is called ‘Cachorro’, with a person behind in civilian clothes. That person in civilian clothes with a white cap gets off, goes and talks for a few seconds with the deputy commissioner Inca. I listen when Inca tells him ‘go put that'”, Cuevas said last Thursday, in the context of the oral trial they are facing 14 Buenos Aires police officers for Lucas’s crime.
Cuevas specified that he saw “that person in civilian clothing approach the back of the car, where the door was open, and drop the weapon.” “After seeing the news (…) he identified that the one who had placed the weapon was Isassi,” said Cuevas, and explained that “while he was in custody he found out that Torres bragged about giving him the toy gun that he kept in a chest at the police station”.
Before finishing his testimony, Cuevas turned to Dalbón and asked Lucas’s family for forgiveness, to which the lawyer replied that “only God forgives.” “I’m not going to forgive him because they didn’t forgive my son,” commented the father of the murdered boy.
Following Cuevas’ statement, Lucas’s family lawyer, Gregorio Dalbón, and prosecutors Guillermo De la Fuente and Gómez Barbella requested a report from the City Police Transparency Office on the geolocation of cash Torres’ motorcycle, which showed that “he moved through the area where the crime occurred and also went back and forth to the 4D Neighborhood Police Station.” A security camera would also have recorded the passage of a City Police motorcycle, driven by Torres and accompanied by Isassi.
For this reason, the representative of the González family and the prosecutors requested the arrest of Torres, who will be investigated this Monday from 10 o’clock by Judge Vanesa Peluffo, in charge of Criminal and Correctional Court 7. On Tuesday the oral debate will continue and the Defendants will have the opportunity to provide their testimony before the pleading stage begins.
The case
On the morning of November 17, 2021, Lucas Gonzalez –player of the lower divisions of Barracas Central–, was traveling in a Volkswagen Suran with Julián Salas (19), Joaquín Zuñiga (19) and Niven Huanca (19), who had gone to test the club, when they were intercepted by three Buenos Aires agents from Brigade 6 from Comuna 4 who were aboard a Nissan Tiida.
The officers were in civilian clothes and had not shown any identification, so the boys believed it was an assault and tried to escape. At that moment, the policemen began to shoot at the vehicle and one of the projectiles hit Lucas in the head, who died the following day at the El Cruce de Florencio Varela Hospital.
“I thought it was a robbery, an assault, because no kind of loud voice or anything was heard, it was only heard when the car intercepted the other one and then the shots”, declared Connell Farrel, he only eyewitness not related to the case.
Gabriel Issasi, Fabian Andres Lopez (48) y Juan Jose Nieva (37), They are accused of “aggravated homicide for having been committed with treachery, for pleasure, for racial hatred, for the premeditated collaboration of two or more people and for being committed abusing their function or position by a member of a police force.” They also face charges for “attempted aggravated homicide, ideological falsehood and illegal deprivation of liberty aggravated by functional abuse and without provision of law”, in the case of Lucas’s friends.
Another 11 police officers from the City are being tried for covering up the crime against the young soccer player and the torture to which the other boys were subjected.
