Argentines on Friday protested police brutality after officers fired shots that led to the deaths of three teenagers and a young man in a car chase.
Authorities have removed 13 officers from the force and detained seven of them pending an investigation.
The case has caused a public uproar that prompted hundreds of people to stage a march “against the trigger-happy” in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.
The car with the 22-year-old man and three teens aged 13 to 14 was driving on Monday in the town of San Miguel del Monte, about 120km south of Buenos Aires.
Police said a suspicious car had been reported and the car with the teens failed to stop on police orders.
A chase ensued and shots were fired by the police. The car crashed into a truck and the four were killed. Another teenager was seriously injured.
“We’ve determined the deaths were produced by the collision that arose from the speed and destabilization of the vehicle generated by the chase and the shots,” Buenos Aires Attorney General Julio Conte Grand said.
Initial investigations showed that a bullet pierced through one of the victims and several bullet shells from guns carried by the police officers were found on the site.
“There was no reason for them to shoot,” he said.
The Buenos Aires Province security minister said police procedure was poorly carried out.
Human rights advocates joined families of victims of police violence at the demonstration.
They blamed an iron-fisted crime policy carried out by Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s administration and said that the latest deaths could set a dangerous precedent in a country haunted by memories of human rights crimes during its 1976-to-1983 dictatorship.
“Stop killing the people, stop killing the young,” human rights leader Nora Cortinas said. “This country must give an image that there’s no impunity for these crimes. Everyone who tortures and kills must go to jail.”
Some held photographs of the young people killed this week.
“We knew we had to come out to ask for justice for the kids,” said Monica Alegre, who said her teenage son Luciano Arruga disappeared in 2009 after he was detained by police and was found dead in 2014.
Last year, a photograph of Macri shaking hands with an off-duty police officer who fatally shot a man in the back after he stabbed and robbed a US tourist sparked a heated debate over the limits of a crackdown on crime.
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