A thief attempted to rob a 12-year-old boy outside the school in La Matanza.

The life of a 12-year-old boy was about to change forever last Wednesday, around 7 PM, when he was the victim of a violent assault in the town of Virrey del Pino, in the district of La Matanza. The minor, who was walking home after attending a technical school, was surprised at a corner by a criminal who threatened to kill him if he didn't hand over his cell phone. The dramatic episode—partially recorded by security cameras—once again exposes the harsh reality of insecurity in the Buenos Aires suburbs, where the state response is glaringly absent and the social fabric, increasingly worn out, tries to hold on with what remains: solidarity among neighbors. The striker, identified as Esteban Sebastián González, 34 years old, was hiding in a nearby house, waiting to prey on anyone unsuspecting. As soon as he saw the minor take out his cell phone, he violently intercepted him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shouted: "Give me the cell phone or I'll kill you." The boy tried to escape but was knocked down and beaten on the ground. [IMAGE]{534648}[/IMAGE] The teenager's screams alerted the neighbors. Some ran to him to comfort and console him while he cried and asked for help; others chased the criminal, who fled to his brother's house, where he tried to take refuge. There, he was cornered by the neighbors until the Police arrived later and arrested him. The stolen phone was recovered and returned to the boy's mother, Mailén, who filed the complaint. The case was left in the hands of the Functional Instruction Unit No. 6 of La Matanza. The family lives on the upper floor of a kiosk they run, a few meters from the attack site. Mailén crudely described her son's emotional state: "My boy is scared. The first thing he thought of was changing schools. Which is not the solution, because we know these things happen at any time of the day." She thanked the neighbors: "I am eternally grateful to them. Otherwise, I don't know how it would have ended." Through sobs, her son told the Police that during the attack he thought: "I don't want to give it to him because it costs my dad and mom to give me a cell phone." The device had been purchased just a month before. The scene was recorded by security cameras, where the aggressor is seen previously stalking another neighbor. "My neighbor saw him with my son, kept walking, but when she heard the screams, she came back. Clearly, he was waiting for someone to be alone to attack them," added Mailén. [IMAGE]{996348}[/IMAGE] The mother also described her desperation upon learning of the incident: "I wasn't there, my husband was coming back from work. When they called me, it was desperation. My son had a scrape on his elbow, thank God it was minor. The backpack cushioned the blow when he was thrown to the ground." In a gesture of helplessness in the face of the lack of state guarantees, Mailén tried to enter the house where the thief was hiding to take a photo and make his face go viral. "I wanted to put up a poster in the neighborhood, publish it on social media, let it be known who he is, so he leaves the neighborhood," she explained. However, she was prevented from doing so. "My neighbors are my angels. Thanks to them, my son is alive and well. He wasn't physically harmed, only psychologically. We will have to work on that so it goes away over time," she concluded. Once again, ordinary people did the work that the State doesn't do.