Parents, students, and neighbors of El Palomar marched this Thursday to demand greater security after criminals shot a father in front of the school where he was taking his daughter, in a new episode of violence that occurred in the province governed by Axel Kicillof.
The attack occurred around 7:15 AM on Ingeniero Santiago Brian at 900, just meters from the Emaús School. The victim, a former chief commissioner of the Buenos Aires Police, had arrived at the establishment to drop off his daughter at kindergarten when three criminals got out of a vehicle and attempted to steal his car.
The man identified himself as a police officer, and an armed confrontation ensued. During the shooting, he was shot in the abdomen and was left seriously injured. Even after being shot, one of the recordings taken at the scene showed the father worried about his daughter's condition: “Can you check on the girl? Hey, the girl!”.
Neighbors assisted the victim and alerted 911. He was subsequently rushed to Posadas Hospital, where he was admitted to intensive care.
The attackers fled the scene and, during their escape, struck again: they stole a vehicle from a woman who was also heading to the school with her two children. The suspects remained at large and were being sought as part of an investigation led by prosecutor Pablo Masferrer, head of UFI No. 2 of Morón.
Hours after the violent episode, parents and neighbors gathered at Dinamarca and Gobernador D'Amico and marched to the house of the mayor of Morón, the Kirchnerist Lucas Ghi, where they demanded answers amid applause, pot-banging, and shouts of “Security”.
Neighbors of Morón gathered
“We can’t live like this anymore” and “We can’t live in fear” were some of the demands expressed during the mobilization. One neighbor summarized the situation in the area: “In El Palomar, it’s like playing roulette: you get out of the car and you don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”
Testimonies also pointed to a lack of police presence in the area. One neighbor stated that weeks ago there had already been another armed robbery in front of the same school, during the time students were leaving, and maintained that the presence of municipal agents arranged after that incident lasted only a few days. “There are no police, no patrol cars. The whole neighborhood is the same,” he reported.
The viral flyer among the neighbors
The protest will continue this Friday at 10 AM in front of the Municipality of Morón, where parents and neighbors will again demand measures against insecurity. The call circulated under the slogan: “Alive we go to school, alive we want to return”.
The repeated attacks in Palomar once again expose the concern for insecurity that neighbors in the Buenos Aires suburbs face, just a day after residents of José C. Paz also took to the streets to demand answers regarding criminal violence and the deaf ears of the provincial administration.
