Santa Fe police gets extra firepower goes armed - The resolution was implemented by Victor Sarnaglia, the force's director. It enables all police personnel to carry "a cartridge in the chamber," something that prohibited a 1998 resolution. Easy trigger door.
The resolution issued by the Chief of the Santa Fe Police, Víctor Sarnaglia, enables all Santa Fe Police personnel to "own a cartridge in a chamber", something that was prohibited by a 1998 resolution.
Sarnaglia's argument is based on the decision to "safeguard the safety of the entire population of Santa Fe and all police personnel acting" in the face of the situation that the province is going through. So far this year, there are already 17 murders in the province.
Santa Fe police gets extra firepower goes armed
Faced with these facts, Security Minister Marcelo Saín said that the responsibility is "criminal groups that were historical allies of the high hierarchy of the Police" and stressed that it is due to "a kind of terrorism to finalize the review process between police structures and organized crime and drug trafficking. " In the same line the declarations of Governor Omar Perotti, who assured that what happens is a response to the decision to "have a new Police", are inscribed.
In this context, the new police chief appointed by Perotti left the resolution prohibiting "the use of cartridges in a chamber except in cases where it is necessary for security reasons". Now, the police will be able to go outside with their weapons ready to fire.
A matter of "rights"
In an interview with the TN television channel, Sarnaglia said: "No one is ordering the staff to carry a cartridge in the bedroom. In fact, an administrative decision that was unfair is being forbidden. A citizen who is carrying a weapon is entitled to have a cartridge in the chamber. "
This decision by Sarnaglia and his justification opened a controversy even in the cabinet itself. The secretary of Human Rights of the province, Lucila Puyol, said that it is "a setback" and that "the hard hand does not work and does not solve the problems of the population."
Despite these criticisms and in the face of questions that point out that Sarnaglia's decision opens the door to more cases of police violence, the force chief justified his resolution and said: "Easy trigger situations are not resolved with administrative measures. ". And he completed: "Perotti made the decision that there should be no collusion between the entities of the State and crime. The governor expressly denounced it and there is a decision not to have permissiveness towards criminal organizations."
However, the "criminal organizations" referred to by the head of the force have acted during all these years with the complicity of the high command of the "narcopolicía" santafesina, a detail that he prefers not to mention. But that's not all, since the Santa Fe police hold another criminal record: for years it has been in the platoon of the five provinces with the highest easy trigger rate in the country. With the excuse of "safeguarding security," that force is now empowered with greater firepower.
Shipping federal agents
"We are not going to tolerate situations of violence like the ones we are experiencing," Governor Perotti said and confirmed that Nation will send about 3,000 federal agents. "We will have a coordination of federal, national and local forces available to the best possible result for the neighbors," he said.
For his part, Minister Sain reported: "In a few hours we institutionalized a new dynamic among actors throughout the political arc of the province. And without delay, we gave muscle to what was agreed when implementing a new action plan with the support of the Ministry of Security of the Nation ".
However, there is no example that demonstrates that with the saturation of troops in the province there can be some improvement.
The same is what denounced the teachers nucleated in AMSAFE Rosario who point out: "The road is no more death and repression." They flatly reject the landing of Gendarmerie in the province as the resolution of the new head of the Santa Fe Police.
In the same tuning, María del Carmen Verdú, a spokesperson for the Coordination against Police and Institutional Repression (Correpi), said in radio media: “The weapon ready to fire goes without insurance, and the first consequence to be seen is more cases of easy trigger, ”he predicted.
The campaign to generate consensus for a harder hand focused its magnifying glass on the poorest neighborhoods in the south and west of Rosario, which are the favorite scapegoats of all campaigns in favor of the state hard hand. The landing of 2000 gendarmes and 700 troops of federal forces to saturate Rosario and the city of Santa Fe also raises concern.
It will not be the first time that this force acts at a time when the Police are exposed by corruption and complicity with criminal gangs. Security Minister Sain and his partner Frederic, although they have a speech to end impunity, continue to carry out the same saturation operations that Nilda Garré once carried out during the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
In 2010, while Garré was in charge of the Ministry of Security, the president by decree ordered the Operational Sentinel plan, a plan that brought troops from the Naval Prefecture and the Gendarmerie to the entire Buenos Aires suburbs. The following year, in July 2011, the Southern Belt Unit Plan was launched through another presidential decree. It was based on the presence of more than 9,000 gendarmes installed in the most humble neighborhoods in the south of the City of Buenos Aires.
The results showed the true face of this repression policy. In 2013 and 2014, the Office of Institutional Violence (Procuvin) was able to file 42 complaints against the National Gendarmerie for illegitimate detentions in the checkpoints. In 86% percent of cases, the victims were children and adolescents. In addition, according to stories collected, it was learned that during this period the gendarmes tortured and held at least 53 people. And about 100 young people were killed throughout the country by the easy trigger of this neighborhood occupation force.
In the previous Gendarmerie landings in Rosario, from the legal area of the Assembly for Children and Youth they detailed that federal agents "force the boys to dance, eat marijuana cigarettes or sing the hymn. In some cases the they beat and steal their belongings. " "Mini reasons," he says, is usually suffered by "groups of humble kids who travel on public roads in popular neighborhoods."