“I acted in the line of duty, exercised my legitimate defense and did not commit any crime”, repeated Gabriel Isassi, Juan José Nieva and Fabián López, the three members of the Buenos Aires Police plainclothes brigade accused of aggravated homicide of Lucas González, in his brief statements on the first day of the trial for the crime of the 17-year-old boy. The defense of the three defendants, headed by the same lawyer who defended Luis Chocobar, thus showed the first lines of a strategy aimed at arguing that the policemen shot at the car of Lucas and his friends when they They “rammed” them when trying to flee. “We come for justice and for the truth”, said Héctor González, Lucas’s father, before the trial.
“Self Defense”
When gabriel isassi He stood up and went to the podium, Héctor González was no longer in the room. Minutes before, the Tribunal Oral Criminal N°25 I had explained him and Julián, Joaquín and Niven, the three friends of Lucas, who could not witness the investigations because they had not yet declared. Yes, it was in the Auditorium Hall of Comodoro P and the large number of Lucas’s friends and family who arrived at the place from Florencio Varela. “Killer”, some whispered, with teary eyes, as Isassi sat in front of the court. “I will testify and I will not receive questions from any of the parties”, was the first thing said by the 41-year-old man, the inspecting officer in charge of Brigade No. 6 accused by the aggravated homicide for premeditation, treachery, for being committed by police forces and for racial hatred and pleasure.
He immediately praised himself: “I just have to say that I have twenty years of service in the Police, within three forces: the Buenos Aires Police, the Metropolitan Police and the City Police. In the three forces I was decorated and I had no sanction, I performed in the best way,” he said. In the public, the whispers became generalized murmurs: “Nerve”, was heard among the noise. Then the inspecting officer gave his position on what happened on the morning of November 17, 2021: “I am sure that I acted in the line of duty, that I exercised my legitimate defense and that I did not commit any crime”, he assured, and the murmurs turned into screams.
Isassi was followed Juan Jose Nieva. It is the officer who He drove the Nissan Tiida unidentifiable room that the three officers were occupying. He is also the one who claims to have been injured that morning, after intercept the Surán of the four boys at the intersection of Iriarte and Vélez Sarsfield. In their investigative investigations, the three agents, who on those occasions they admitted having shotThey claimed they did it for “repel” the “attack” from the boys’ car as they tried to flee the shooting. On this occasion, however, Nieva’s statement did not delve into the lesion that the car would have caused him in his escape, but was much more concise: “I exercised my legitimate defense, I did not commit any crime”, was the officer’s statement, in line with that of his superior Isassi. Senior officer Fabián López, the remaining member of the brigade and former federal police officer, went the same way: “In this fact I fulfilled my duty, I exercised legitimate defense and I did not commit any crime”, he remarked.
Among the testimonies, a discussion was repeated between the accusing bloc and the defense lawyer, Fernando Soto, same lawyer who defended Luis Chocobar. It is that both the trial prosecutor, Guillermo de la Fuente, and Gregorio Dalbón, lawyer in the complaint, requested that the inquiries made to the three policemen during the investigation. The detail is not minor because on those occasions the agents They did provide an account of what happenedThey said that they were in the area doing field work on the orders of the Prosecutor’s Office specializing in drug-related crimes, that they saw the Surán make strange movements in Iriarte and Luna, that they followed them, that they put on a siren, intercepted them and, after identifying themselves shouting “police”, they fired.
“The gentleman has said what he wanted, but the truth is that he cannot make us forget what he had said in the investigation,” De la Fuente snapped, while Dalbón accompanied him by pointing out the “contradictions” between the statement in the trial with that of instruction. The accusers’ request was rejected by the court, which considered that the brief statements are valid by themselves. The statements of the three friends of Lucas were left for the next hearing, on March 28. There they will tell what they lived that day. From the first moment they assured that the brigade never identified themselves, that they were suddenly and violently intercepted, and that without warning they got out of the car to start shooting at them.
“Engage”
Around 4:30 p.m., the speakers of the Auditorium resounded with the voices of two policemen when the telephone conversation that Rodolfo Ozáncommissioner of Neighborhood 4A, and Fabian Du Santos, commissioner of the 4D, had at 9:59 on November 17, half an hour after the shooting. “What’s up Rodo, did they send a booger?”, was heard on the speakers in the voice of Du Santos, at the beginning of the conversation that emerged from the expert opinion on his phone and that this newspaper published in December 2021.“A mochazo”, Ozán replies to later tell that he already sent for “whatever” to justify the fact and ask Du Santos to call “Dog” Romero, Brigade commissioner, to “clean this up.” Ozán and Du Santos chose not to testify, so they did not say anything about the audio.
Only two of those accused of the cover-up chose to testify at the trial: they were Juan “El Perro” Romero and Roberto Inca, commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Brigades and Summaries Division of Commune 4, direct superiors of Isassi, López and Nieva. In a common strategy, the two offered similar accounts of what happened that day: Romero said that he was in Padua when the events occurred, he remarked that this is 40 kilometers from Barracas and that he never had contact with Lucas, because when he arrived they had already transferred him. Inca, meanwhile, said that he was at the police station, to “30 blocks from the fact, “he stressed, and that he did not see Lucas either.
Regarding what happened at Alvarado and Perdriel, the corner where the boys’ car was finally stopped, Romero and Inca elaborated on a specific detail: the times of the judicial consultation. It is that Inca was in charge of carrying out this consultation, which was carried out in the Juvenile Court around 11:30 in the morning of that day, two hours after the events. In the instruction, the researchers considered that in that period of time the cover-up was planned and completed, with a replica weapon planted in the middle. In the inquiries this Thursday, Romero and Inca assured that the consultation was made “as fast as possible” and that the delay was due to the fact that the judicial officials whom Inca consulted did not finish taking charge of their jurisdiction in the event.
Inca, meanwhile, is the the only defendant who reports having seen a weapon –in reference to the reply– under the driver’s seat of the Surán when he arrived at the place and that, for this reason, and according to the version that the Isassi brigade had transmitted to them, raised the fact to Justice as a “confrontation”. In his investigation, inspector Héctor Cuevas, one of the first to arrive at Alvarado and Perdriel, assured instead that he looked inside the car and only saw backpacks, juice, cookies and a thermos. The rest of the defendants for the cover-up chose not to speak on the first day, although they reserved the right to do so later.
Requests for annulment
The first trial hearing began after 10:20 a.m. this Thursday and ended at 7:00 p.m. Although it was scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m., a delay in the transfers of the fourteen detainees postponed the start. Finally, the defendants were entering after 10 and They sat on the right side of the room.behind their lawyers. The defense is not unified, rather it is divided into blocks, but it was Soto who commanded the requests for annulment presented after the readings of the requirements for elevation to trial.
The lawyer requested, in principle, the nullity of the testimonial statements of Julián, Joaquín and Niven, by assuring that they were taken without the presence of the defense. Also questioned the presence friend of the court of the Secretary of Human Rights of the Nation, which was represented by Horacio Pietragalla himself at the first trial hearing. He assured that his role was not clear. Both requests were rejected by the court.
The third order, meanwhile, revealed some of the lines that the defense can take. It is that the lawyer asked for the expansion of three test measures. In the first place, regarding the ballistic survey, he requested a microscopic test of the “adhesions” found in the projectiles, arguing that they may imply that there were “bounces” in the trajectory. From there starts a line that would seek to prove that the police did not shoot directly at the boys. He also asked that the impacts that were in the car be analyzed in depth and, lastly, if rubber remains were found in Nieva’s shoe, to try to prove the contact of the tire with the policeman’s leg.
Concentration and demand for justice
“We come for justice and for the truth”, said Héctor González, Lucas’s father, before the trial. Neighbors, friends and relatives of the family arrived in buses to Comodoro Py who hung flags on the bars asking for justice for the boy. There were also T-shirts from Barracas Central, the club Lucas played for, and Defensa y Justicia, the club he was a fan of. “Lucas was killed because of his face and his skin color. The issue I support the most is structural racism”warned, for his part, Gregorio Dalbón at the doors of the courts.