A police officer accused of voluntary manslaughter was transferred to the warden of the Tribunal on Talcahuano Street on Tuesday after an investigation was opened by City Court No. 8 into the death of a man who died after the officer kicked him in the chest.
Jorge Martín Gómez, 40, was kicked by police officer Esteban Armando Ramírez on Monday in the City’s San Cristóbal neighbourhood after Gómez reportedly “refused” to get out of a bus lane. The police officer’s lawyers maintain the kick fell under the definition of “legitimate defence.”
While Ramírez initially stated the man had threatened him with a knife after ignoring a demand to get out of the street, recently surfaced surveillance footage demonstrates Gómez had his hands behind his back throughout the confrontation.
The Transparency and External Control has since opened an inquiry into the Ramírez’s actions.
Gómez's uncle, Segundo Walter Gómez, told Perfil that the officer had used force in an "excessive form."
Marcelo D’Alessandro, the City’s Security Secretary, stated during an appearance on television channel TN that Ramírez acted “within protocol.”
“We have to wait to see what the autopsy reveals,” D’Alessandro said. “To see if he died as a consequence of the fall or by some substance that he had consumed.”
The incident is yet another episode fueling numerous denunciations of “excessive” force used by the City’s police, most notably the killing of 18-year-old Pablo Kukoc by police officer Luís Chocobar after the youth robbed a US tourist en La Boca. At the time, Chocobar’s actions were defended by President Mauricio Macri and Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who hosted Chocobar in the Casa Rosada. Chocobar is set to begin oral arguments in his trial, and is accused of “aggravated homicide through the use of a firearm in excess of the fulfillment of duty.”
– PERFIL / TIMES
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