In a tragic turn of events, the first fatal lynching of the year occurred in Tucumán province after a thief who participated in a fatal motorcycle robbery was later caught by the victim’s neighbours and beaten to death. The incident occurred on Sunday morning when Alexis Jiménez arrived at his family’s residence after giving his girlfriend a ride back home on his motorcycle. Minutes after, two men assaulted Alexis and his brother, César Daniel Jiménez, and immediately ran out of the house to yell at them while trying to wrestle the motorcycle away.
The thieves fired four shots — with one of them hitting Jiménez’s neck — and then tried to escape. But after hearing all the commotion, several neighbours were alerted about the incident and managed to catch one of the thieves. He was severely beaten by a group of neighbours and had a serious head injury.
According to several witnesses, police officers also participated in the lynching.
“The police picked him up and forcefully pushed him into a truck. They also beat him,” alleged Jiménez’s neighbours. However, local police sources denied this was the case, claiming that the neighbours had prevented the ambulance from arriving at the scene to assist the beaten man.
The alleged thief died a little after he was transferred to the local hospital. Jímenez, on the otherhand, died five hours later in the hospital.
He was 28 years old.
Police forces identified the assailant as “Guerrero.” He had a long criminal record, they said.
In January 2013, he was released from prison after he was arrested for robbing a motorcycle. The weapon used by the thieves to kill Jiménez was a 9-millimeter pistol (the same caliber used by police forces) with its identification number rubbed off. The gun was seized by law enforcement officers and is being investigated by the police department’s homicide section.
Jiménez’s next door neighbour, Mario Sánchez, recalled that three years ago the victim had suffered another motorcycle robbery where they had shot him in the leg to take it. The victim was an employee at the University of Tucumán.
LYNCHING BECOMES ROUTINE
This is the second attempted lynching since the beginning of 2015 in Tucumán province. The first incident occurred last week, when a thief along with two accomplices on a motorcycle tried to steal a pedestrian’s cell phone. The thief was captured and beaten by residents taken to the hospital with a bloody face.
There have been even more public lynching reports toward the end of 2014 in Tucumán. On October 24, a mugger who tried to rob a purse form a woman was lynched by residents in Tucumán’s capital city. Other incidents were reported in November — two in Tafí Viejo and another in San Miguel de Tucumán. Last year, in response to the increase in public lynching, Governor José Alperovich made public statements demonstrating his sympathy for those who take justice into their own hands.
“I don’t know how I would react if it happened to me. One has to be in their shoes,” said Alperovich.
Herald staff with online media