“They cracked his skull open for no reason.” “I was coming back from the march and on the corner of Mitre and Montevideo I came across this kid who had just had his head cracked open with a stick. Just like that, out of nowhere, some guy came and hit him,” Diego I., one of the witnesses to the incident, told Presentes. He is also a photographer and was able to take pictures of the attackers as they continued threatening and confronting those present. “I immediately went to see where the commotion was coming from and I ran into the attackers. As soon as they saw me taking pictures, they came at me,” he recounted after giving his statement and submitting the photos at the 5th Police Station. When people began to gather at the scene and confront them, the attackers went inside the house at 39 Montevideo Street. In a few minutes, there were about thirty people who started yelling at them to come out, and then one of them came out shirtless, with a gun covered by a t-shirt, and started threatening them. The moment was captured by another young woman who was passing by, Maru Rivero, who uploaded a video to her Twitter account asking for help: “This is happening at Montevideo 39: a guy hitting people with a hockey stick. What chaos at #Orgulloba HELP!”

This is happening in Montevideo 39. A guy is hitting people with a hockey stick. They're protesting against the #orgulloba . HELP! pic.twitter.com/uzKkA4TN2q

— Girl • Lunar (@marourivero) November 18, 2017

  Around 10 p.m., Judge Pablo Ormachea, head of Criminal and Correctional Court No. 11, arrived at the scene and ordered the block cleared of protesters to begin the raid, which finally took place shortly before midnight. According to the Buenos Aires City Police report, only one of the aggressors, a 24-year-old Argentinian man, was arrested, but his identity was not released. This is not an isolated incident: since last year, reports of attacks motivated by sexual orientation have increased in the City of Buenos Aires. According to the records of the LGBT Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires, which reports to the Ombudsman's Office, 58 reports of attacks and 72 cases of rights violations were filed in 2016, more than double the 28 reports of attacks documented in 2015.