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By Soledad Mizerniuk and Victoria Rodríguez, from Santa Fe

[NEWS UPDATED ON MARCH 28 at 11:20]

Two young men testified on March 26 at the Provincial Directorate of Internal Affairs of Santa Fe—a citizen oversight body for the police—that officers subjected them to harassment, beatings, and insults in a “small room” at the 12th police station in Santo Tomé, in the early hours of Monday the 25th. Similar cases are being investigated at the same location.

Six police officers were arrested on March 28. All are members of the Santo Tomé Command. In addition, at least nine other officers (from the Command and the 12th Precinct) are under investigation but will remain free during the proceedings, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office.  

The investigation has been assigned to the Prosecutor's Office for Complex Crimes. The prosecutor in charge is Mariela Jiménez. Her public statements will be released after the arraignment hearing, according to official sources. The charges have not yet been made public, but it is expected they will range from unlawful coercion and illegal entry to harassment and falsification of documents.

The facts

“I was arriving home by car, around one in the morning, when I saw a police car turn on its sirens and start accelerating, like it was chasing me. I parked in front of my house, where Nahuel was already waiting, having arrived on his motorcycle at the same time as me. The police came at me and I went inside my house, through the gate. They told me they wanted to search us. That's where it all started,” says Alexis Do Santos (29 years old), while repeating the story from office to office.

Alexis spoke with Presentes in the waiting room of the Provincial Directorate of Internal Affairs in Santa Fe, while her partner, Nahuel Taborda (21 years old), was giving his statement. The events they are reporting took place on Monday, March 25, from 1:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., when both were released.

The attacks began in the El Tanque neighborhood of Santo Tomé – bordering the city of Santa Fe – where Alexis lives. “We were coming from Santa Fe. I was in my car and Nahuel was on his motorcycle. We entered via Avenida 7 de Marzo and then I took another road. A block and a half before arriving, a patrol car from the Radioelectric Command passed in front of me. I continued to my front door, parked, and that's when I saw them appear with sirens blaring and speeding away,” the young man recounted.

The testimony recounts a series of events that unfolded in minutes but felt like an eternity. “Two police officers jumped out of their car, like they were in a chase, with their shotguns, and told us to come outside because they wanted to search us. I refused, because they didn't give me a reason and because they seemed tense. They told me my car was suspicious because of the tinted windows. I offered them the keys so they could check it,” Alexis said.

“One of them, a bald guy, came up to me and tried to grab me by the neck to drag me outside. We struggled, I pushed him away, and they fired two shotgun blasts. One shot hit the tree and the other hit the ditch. They were about four or five meters away from us when they fired. Then they pulled out their service weapons and pointed them at us. In two seconds, there was a battalion of police outside; the whole block was full of them. We didn't understand anything,” he continues.

According to Alexis's account, the police were already on the sidewalk when he started asking them if they knew the laws. “They were doing something they shouldn't have been. We started filming them. Suddenly, they all stormed inside my house. They started kicking and punching us. They wouldn't give us any reason for what they were doing. They didn't have a search warrant or anything. There were eight or nine of them, the first two officers and others who arrived later. My sister had arrived in the middle of it all, and they grabbed her by the neck. They dragged us outside and took Nahuel and me to the police station. That's where our ordeal began.”

At the police station

The 12th police precinct in the province of Santa Fe, denounced by the victims, is located at 2571 Alvear Street in Santo Tomé. According to their testimonies, the beating took place in a small room, a break room for the officers. They stated that none of the officers on duty at the precinct attempted to stop the violent policemen.

“They threw us against the tables, against the benches. They kicked us. I tried to explain to them that I'm retired, due to a disability, because I had an accident. I showed them my ID. I have an acrylic part in my head, because in the accident I had a skull fracture, and I had surgery with 75 stitches in my stomach. They kept hitting me in the ribs, in the lungs, everywhere,” says Alexis.

According to their testimonies, the violence escalated when the police realized they were a couple. “At one point they saw us trying to protect each other, and I said to Nahuel, ‘Stay calm, my love.’ And that’s when they went crazy,” Alexis explains, continuing, “They started yelling, ‘Oh, so you’re faggots, you’re boyfriends. Look how the queers are crying.’ They grabbed us and twisted our testicles. They started touching our buttocks, sticking a finger inside us, and telling us not to look at their faces. They said to me, ‘So you’re disabled, you’re sick.’ And then they started hitting me again.”

“It’s not the first time”

“It’s not the first time this has happened to me. When I was 17 or 18, they did the same thing to me at that police station. They took me in for a background check, and they beat me to death, they suffocated me… I never filed a report, out of fear,” he recalls.

The abuse continued until around 5:00 a.m. that morning, the victims reported. Alexis and Nahuel's families had gone to the police station. From outside, they could hear the young men's cries of pain and pleas for help. Only then did the torture stop.

From there, they were taken to different police stations, to the Samco – the public health center in Santo Tomé – and to the José María Cullen Hospital in Santa Fe. At 5 p.m., they returned to the 12th police station to be released.

From that moment on, they decided to file reports with the appropriate authorities, despite their fear that patrol cars have been circling Alexis's house in recent hours. They have already requested protection.

Official response

In an interview with Presentes, Esteban Paulón, Undersecretary of Sexual Diversity Policies for the province of Santa Fe, stated: “We will support the victims and do everything within our power to ensure that this does not go unpunished.”

“As soon as we learned of the case, we forwarded the complaint to the Ministry of Security. We will meet with them this Thursday, along with the Municipality of Santo Tomé. We will also meet that day with the prosecutor from the Unit for Complex Crimes and Institutional Violence, Ezequiel Hernández,” he emphasized.

One detail the official provided is that “apparently, there was a previous complaint about similar incidents at that police station, but it wasn't made public.” “There's a specific case involving a trans woman who filed a complaint with Internal Affairs,” Paulón said.

Finally, the Undersecretary of Sexual Diversity Policies emphasized: “We will always stand with the victims of violence and support the progress of the cases so that the appropriate sanctions can be imposed on the agents, who under no excuse can act as they did.”