Buenos Aires High Court upholds life sentences for two police officers in Lucas González murder
The highest court in Buenos Aires City has upheld the life prison sentences handed down against Gabriel Isassi and Juan José Nieva for the homicide of the teenager in 2021.
Buenos Aires court upholds life sentences for Lucas González killing
The Superior Court of Justice of Buenos Aires City has upheld the life prison sentences handed down against police officers Gabriel Alejandro Isassi and Juan José Nieva, who were responsible for the homicide of Lucas González on 17 November 2021, according to infobae.com.
The court rejected the complaint filed by the defence counsel for both officers, who were seeking an extraordinary review of the sentence. According to the judges, the appeals raised no constitutional issue that would warrant a new review of the case.
Lucas González was 17 years old and played for Barracas Central. That afternoon he was returning from training with three friends when three members of Brigade 6 of the City Police's Commune 4 — including Isassi and Nieva — intercepted the vehicle in which they were travelling. The officers were circulating without uniforms and in a car bearing no police identification, in the vicinity of a slum area. They got out with standard-issue firearms and opened fire on the car.
A shot pierced the windscreen and struck González in the head from front to back, causing his death. The other three occupants of the vehicle — Julián Alejandro Salas, Joaquín Zúñiga Gómez and Niven Huanca Garnica, all minors — survived and were victims of attempted aggravated homicide.
Five aggravating factors and cover-up operation
The sentence included five aggravating factors for the homicide: use of a firearm, treachery, racial hatred, premeditated joint action of two or more persons, and abuse of the function of members of a security force. Additionally, the police officers were attributed with the unlawful deprivation of liberty of the survivors. In Isassi's case, the crime of falsification of documents was added.
The judges found it proven that after the shots, the accused and other officers caused the teenagers who had survived to be detained. During this procedure, a toy gun was placed inside the victims' vehicle in order to simulate an armed confrontation. False radio communications were also made to support that same version.
The judicial reconstruction established that the officers fired before the victims' car collided with the door of the police vehicle, a collision that caused minor injuries to Nieva. The complete sequence, recorded on security cameras, was estimated at 13 seconds and considered compatible with the possibility of a different reaction by the officers.
The defence, rejected at all levels
The defence argued that the officers acted based on a suspicion related to the sale of narcotics and that they fired in response to the car's advance. The court rejected this hypothesis, stating that it did not justify the police officers having waited in a secluded location, blocked their vehicle, got out without identifying themselves and begun firing from a distance of no more than three metres.
Security cameras, testimonies from the survivors and statements from family members confirmed that the young people were returning from football practice. The ruling emphasised that the defence identified no concrete evidence to support the alleged suspicion of a crime.
Isassi and Nieva had previously challenged the ruling by Chamber III of the National Court of Criminal and Correctional Cassation, which declared their appeal partially inadmissible and rejected the remaining arguments. The Superior Court of Justice has now concluded that the arguments presented merely expressed disagreement with the assessment of the evidence, a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the courts that heard earlier proceedings.
The highest court in the city also ruled out the existence of legitimate self-defence or performance of duty. The evidence made it possible to establish, according to the ruling, that the officers opened fire immediately, from a short distance and against a vehicle in which four minors were travelling.
Source: Google News AR — Buenos Aires