The colorful and neat urbanity of San Miguel del Monte beats differently this week. In the central square of the citycoastal to the lagoon of the same name, a series of hanging posters recount in black and white comics the events known as the Monte Massacre. They explain how on May 20, 2019, five young people in a Fiat 147 chased by the police collided with the trailer of a parked truck: “Rocío survived. Gonzalo, Aníbal, Danilo and Camila died ”says the gigantography.
Their names are also painted on the semicircle of cement that serves as an amphitheater and a bench in the square, next to the slogan: “The square belongs to the kids”. It was written on Monday night, after the first day of the trial that the Oral Criminal Court 4 of La Plata is following, against the four police officers accused of aggravated homicide: the former captain of the Buenos Aires city Rubén Alberto García and the officers Leandro Ecilape, Mariano Ibáñez and Manuel Monreal. Another 20 agents, including the fire chief, are involved in another cover-up case. And another follows the espionage of families.
That Monday night, in this square, summoned by the House of Human Rights of Monte, there was rap, bonfires and hugs. And the giant posters that sway with the wind were hung, with the same cadence with which the waters of the lagoon undulate a few blocks away. The tragedy has mourned the heart of the town since, four years ago, on the other side of the lagoon, the persecution began that ended in the crash; on the collector of Route 3. There are two white crosses there: for Gonzalo and for Aníbal. “Camila arrived at the hospital with a thread of life,” says her grandmother Mónica Cedan, who had to go “to recognize her.” She extends her hand to the void and, through tears, completes: “She was there, and the other boys behind her, their bodies covered with cloth.”
But the pain was followed by the social upheaval that transformed it into a demand for justice. It was when the neighbors became aware – two days after that fateful midnight – that “the accident” reported by the police and municipal officials covered up police harassment and a chase with shots and two patrol cars involved.
The square of the kids
In the plaza, at noon on this Wednesday, May 10, and while witnesses to the cover-up in La Plata testify, a group of teenagers in school uniforms eat cookies on a bench. They wait for “the counter-turn” because they do full-time at school. “All of Monte is informed,” says one of them, Facundo, when asked by Page 12. “They killed them,” adds Gustavo. “It was not a traffic accident as they had said,” Vladimir explains. “The police cannot shoot, and when the video came out they said they were going with flashlights, but the car had bullet holes,” they describe. They refer to a video that exposed the persecution. And to the official word that spoke of flashlights to explain “the lights that could be seen coming out of the patrol cars.”
Like many in Monte, these young people are organizing themselves to go to La Plata. They want to “be in the trial” that follows the four Buenos Aires police officers tried as co-authors of the homicides of Camila López (13), Danilo Sansone (13), Gonzalo Domínguez (14) and Aníbal Suárez (22), and the attempted of homicide to Rocío Quagliarello, who is currently 17 years old.
That night in 2019, “the five of them had gathered here in the square, as always”, review Felipe and Candela, friends of “Gonzi, Danilo, Cami and Rocío”. And “as Aníbal was older and had a car” –they add– they had gone to the lagoon. From the school to the square, and from the square to the lagoon: the circuit. The epicenter is the square, to rap or hang out. The same square that on March 24 was honored with the painting of “the handkerchiefs of the Mothers” recounts María del Carmen Lamothe, who presides over the House of Human Rights. “And the next day they ordered them to be covered, and they painted the floor gray,” he laments, about the management of Together for Change that the municipality leads today.
The association brings together claims for the rights that began in Monte due to the contamination of the water with arsenic –natural, not industrial–, public education, health and against police mistreatment. “But it is formalized from the tragedy” María points out. Although The first organization around the case was the “20 de Mayo” that during the pandemic made popular pots in the square to distribute food in the neighborhoods.
Then the feminist collective “Vivas” joins, which also adds to the public claim, the disappearance of Camila Cinalli: “a case of human trafficking,” says Trinidad Loyola, another young woman who seeks “a better society, with more justice.” he began to think “in something more organic for the defense of human rights, because cases and more cases of police abuse are beginning to arrive”explains Maria.
“The plague”
Among the cartoon drawings that represent the five victims -even when Rocío survived-, there is a bike, a camera, a soccer ball, headphones, and a skateboard. “The things that identify them, and say what they did and what they wanted to be”, describes Candela Granada. She was a friend of the boys account. “Plaguería united us,” she explains to Page 12. She says it and reinforces it with a cool laugh. And accomplice, she looks at Felipe.
“Terrible street Danilo”, confirms with a smile Felipe Gómez Casale, who rapped “with Gonza and Danilo”. “Here, under the tree” he remembers and points to the place. “And although we all knew each other -he adds later-, we strengthened our relationship because of this, that it was an act of institutional violence” it needs. “And it still is, because justice has not yet been done” adds Candy. His words express conviction. Trini explains: “It was always known that these things happened in Monte, but from this it could be said”. “That is why we are following the trial, no way!” warns Cande, who has a tattoo of a skateboard on his left arm that he says: “Gonzalo”.
“When this happened,” Trini says, the first thing her father said was “what were they doing at that time?”and that question “was extensive to all of Monte,” he shares. “When the truth came out, that fell under its own weight and we all started connecting and organized ourselves to support the fight for this cause and others of institutional violence”.
A month after the event, the first march took place “with social organizations, human rights, Correpi, the Commission for Memory that was there from day one, and that was the most important call in the history of Monte,” Trini reviews. . Something had changed in the city. They knew it from the first weekend that the families gathered at the scene of the tragedy, and the security forces responded with “the cavalry and fire hydrants” describes Camila’s grandmother.
The young people remember that that weekend, when the cover-up was already known, a group of special forces also arrived: with long weapons and on motorcycles “they stopped us, and they made you put on the floor and searched you, they took everything out of the backpack ” Cande recounts. It was “after we found out that there were police officers involved.”
“It was very difficult because we were in mourning for the crash and this from the police came to light,” says Felipe, “there the feeling of sadness changed to anger.” Added to the police action is the cover-up by municipal officials and firefighters. All those who came to the place “to clean and erase evidence” reason the guys.
The site of the “accident”
At half past five that morning the crash site was already “clean”. But the neighbors testified what they saw and thus the plot of the “accident” began to unravel. The first evidence was provided by an employee of the city’s urban monitoring camera service. Then the video of another young man who happened to be there was added and recorded when the patrolmen entered the collector chasing the car where the boys were going. And there are shots.
There were six shots the testimonials say. Among them, the driver of the parked truck, Héctor Mensi. That of a teacher who, upon listening to them, wrote to her husband, a bus driver, that he was working. That of a mason who collected four casings “in front of his house” and handed them over “to Danilo Sansone’s family and to the prosecutor’s office” as he declared, like each party witness, in the jury trial that will culminate on Wednesday.
In the place, also a mural of Memory Truth and Justice. Mónica found “Cami’s scarf and Aníbal’s cap” there, she says. There, where on the 20th there was a march attended by the then mayor, Sandra Mayol –from the Renewal Front–, who later accompanied the relatives to a meeting with the then governor María Eugenia Vidal. “Vidal was silent all the time, the one who spoke was (Cristian) Ritondo” –then responsible for provincial security– family members remember.
let it be justice
The residents of the crash zone are also waiting for the trial. “We are in favor of justice, we want it to be justice,” says Vicente. “Monte is very hurt by this,” adds Gabriel. With the story on the surface “for what they did and said, they have no forgiveness,” claims a woman who lives “around the corner.” “They said that the boy was drunk,” adds Vicente, outraged by the stigmatization that fell on Aníbal, who was of legal age, and on whom it has already been shown that he was not drunk.
“It saddens me a lot to see Danilo’s father, who passes by and calls out his son’s name,” concludes Vicente. He has a trade near the fatal corner. Juan Carlos Sansone, Danilo’s father, sold bait on the road for the fishermen in the lagoon. This week, Juan Carlos, together with Rocío -who testified in the Gesell Chamber for being a minor-, and Camila’s mother, Gonza’s mother and Aníbal’s mother who came from Misiones for the trial, listen to testimonies , and they also say their own, so that this jury of 12 people define the fate, not only of the accused, but also of the people of Monte who seek justice, and on behalf of the victims.
“The caravans to go to the trial” are being organized for the last three hearings: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On the day of the sentence there will be rapping and there will be music, friends promise. The call, from the House of Human Rights together with the “Mothers of the people of Monte”, seeks to support a claim “from the whole of society”, says María about the case whose victims represent so many other young people, martyrs of the ordeal that it represents , even today, police abuse.
