Impunity
crosses
the yellow line
Witnesses say that Wilfreiber Leandro Campos Molina, aged 17, was arrested by officials of the Bolivarian National Police during the riots that took place in Los Próceres on February 17, 2018, during the celebration of the Carnival. Strangely, the captors would have transferred him to the interior of the Los Símbolos Metro station. He was missing for five days and, strangely, his body was found in the tunnels of the subway near El Valle station
Erick S. González Caldea
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Leandro has not arrived? The question resonates in his memory like an echo that can not be undone no matter what he does, wherever he is. "Leandro has not arrived ?, Leandro has not arrived ?, Leandro has not arrived?" ...
From the night of Saturday, February 17, 2018, Thaína had heard her husband ask, over and over again, where the boy was. That day, at 2:00 p.m., Wilfreiber Leandro Campos Molina, 17 years old, had left for Los Próceres, for the celebration of the Carnival, organized by the Mayor of Caracas.
Thaína opens the doors of her home. In her house located in Terrazas de Caricuao highlights a particularly bright floor (as if a polishing machine was passed every day) as well as altars and drums with which the orishas are worshiped.
She offers a freshly brewed coffee, whose smell spreads from the kitchen to the living room. She pours sugar in the cup of her interlocutor and stirs, stirs, stirs ... she seems distracted.
She shows, little by little, the file of documents: the death certificate, the denunciation made before the Scientific and Criminal Investigations Corp (Cicpc), as well as an official sheet where she wrote her version of the facts to be recorded before the Ombudsman's Office
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Thaína Molina escapes hatred through prayer, but continues to demand justice for the murder of her son / Photo Mikel Ferreira
Two weeks had passed and Thaína cried to her 17-year-old son as the day she learned of his murder. With his right hand he dried his tears and prepared to tell the story. It began with his greatest certainty: his son was subdued and captured by officials of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB).
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“I was so distraught that I asked Isaac, the 14-year-old, to get on Facebook and write something, to ask if anyone knew about Wilfreiber Leandro. The friends who were with him that day came to tell me they saw what happened. They told me that the police had caught him at the Los Símbolos Metro station”.
The woman has two versions of what could have happened: “According to the friends of my son, a zaperoco was formed. They say they did not know what was happening, that the police arrived and people started to run; that, as they were scared, ran to the Metro of Los Símbolos, the closest to Los Próceres”.
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Another version, published in the media, indicates that the incursion of the PNB occurred after many of those present that day began to chant "and it will fall, and it will fall, this government will fall". In addition, members of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin) took part. The testimonies gathered by the press are coincident: an indeterminate number of people were arrested.
Twice a week for three months, Thaina met with Proiuris reporters to try to reconstruct her son's murder. But there are some missing pieces ...
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"He wanted to study graphic design"
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The room that Wilfreiber Leandro shared with his male brothers is covered with drawings that the murdered adolescent had made. They are more than 20, some made with charcoal, others with black ink. A naked torso whose face is a great cloud; Marine animals stand out on the walls painted blue.
Imagination and ingenuity were part of Wilfreiber. Vivacious, cheerful, playful are the qualities vividly remembered by his parents, especially by his brothers. Singing and drawing, that was the young man's life.
The adolescent was linked to the imagination through the drawing /Photo Mikel Ferreira
Wilfreiber Leandro was the third of the four children of Renato and Thaína. He is a music teacher at Rafael Guinand high school in UD5; she is a teacher of the César Rengifo Child Foundation, located at UD3. During the 25 years they have been married they formed a family with Kleiver, 24 years old, Yemayery, the female of 21; Wilfreiber Leandro, 17, and Isaac, 14 years old.
Thaína enters the room occupied by her son and assumes the role of guide of an artistic exhibition. Show the drawings of Wilfreiber Leandro, admire them, make them proud. He seems to forget that every time the reporter visits he does the same.
Sadness makes some concessions when he talks about the dreams and aspirations of the boy, even smiles talking about it: "He wanted to study graphic design. He was very good ai it, you know? He was also a musician, he played drums and sang".
Wilfreiber Leandro was a percussionist and he liked Afro-Caribbean rhythms. He learned it with his father. But he was a boy and had also been caught by the almost hypnotic rhythm of reggaeton, hip hop and rap.
The sadness, persistent, returns and the stubborn tears too. But Thaína dries them again and continues. "When he left his room in the mornings, he sang to me, he always sang to me", she recalls.
Death was incorporated into life
"I live the mourning of the loss of my brother but I can not die, I must be good for my son" account Yemayery, mother of a one year old baby. "Leandro loved the child very much, he was very affectionate with him," she says while doing housework for her mother's home, where she still lives.
The daily life of that home now has a new component: death. The passage of time does not seem to lessen the pain that still causes the unexpected demise of Wilfreiber Leandro.
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“The case is totally dead there. Where do I have to go? What do I have to do to make that happen? What happened to the case? Without politics, simply looking for answers”
Thaína Molina
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The Campos Molina males experience different pain. Kleiver has stopped the tears. "I want to see imprisoned those who killed my brother! Why, why did they do it? I need to close this. I want justice done!", exclaims the boy full of anger.
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Isaac does not cry either, but he says without regret that he feels sad. "My brother was happy, he liked music. We were always together. Why would someone want to kill him?" His voice breaks when he says "I want to know who killed him".
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The death of Wilfreiber Leandro has had an especially negative impact on his 14-year-old brother. "He has become rebellious and wants to imitate Leandro. He is not Leandro. Maybe he has not assimilated the process of his death", says the mother. And possibly none of the members of the family has assimilated it yet. "I do not know how to live with this, but I have to continue. The first days I asked permission at work, but I came back. I can not leave the children of pre-school, I can not leave those children without a teacher. My son is dead, but I can not die, "the mother of the murdered youth tells herself.
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Resentment hovers around the house as if it were a wolf ready to attack, but Thaina dodges it every time she leaves her home: "I just want justice done and this does not happen to another boy."
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The search
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Renato Campos was the last member of the family who agreed to speak with Proiuris about the murder of his son. From the beginning he set the rules: nothing abouy politics, nothing about the right or left. "I'm a Chavista and I do not want to politicize this case, I just want to know the truth."
Leandro was a percussionist, he learned it from his father Renato Campos, a music teacher / Photo Mikel Ferreira
He always carries a black koala, where he keeps copies of the complaints made before the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Ombudsman's Office, as well as the telephone numbers of the two Cicpc officers assigned to the investigation of the murder of his son, recorded in a notebook.
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He tells the journey they had to travel to know about the boy's fate. From Sunday 18 the family began looking for the 17 year old, without any results. "On February 20 we went to the PNB at Los Símbolos. They sent us to El Helicoide, he was not there either. We went to the morgue. There they asked us for our information to call us if they knew anything about our son", hhe says. They left the morgue at Bello Monte, hoping that the news about the missing teenager would not come from there.
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On February 21, Renato and Thaína filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor for the boy's disappearance. Two days later, on Saturday, February 24, the house phone rang and Thaína answered. She knew that the worst of her fears had come true when the voice on the other end of the phone identified himself as an officer from the morgue: his son was dead.
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“I live the mourning of the loss of my brother but I can not die, I must be good for my son”
Yermayery Campos
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According to the police report, the body was found on February 21 at the edge of one of the tunnels that lead to the El Valle Metro station. The autopsy indicates that the young man died as a result of the detachment of the first and second cervical vertebrae. He had his head shaved and wore clothes he had carried in his backpack to play carnival, says Thaína after having seen photographs of her son's body.
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The videos that do not appear
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“The young man in green flannel and black backpack who is crossing the yellow line, please refrain from doing so. Users are reminded that the yellow line is the limit of their safety”. Messages like this are usually heard from the speakers of the Caracas Metro. Despite the chaos that characterizes underground transport, it is assumed that everything that happens there, even in the most recently incorporated wagons, is recorded in CCTV cameras. It is an offer of security with dissuasive purposes against the crime unleashed in Caracas and which, of course, has also spread to the main means of transportation used by the people of Caracas. And in the matter of police investigation, the records of the Metro security cameras constitute a source of evidence. It is a question as basic as it is inescapable.
Thaína Molina keeps the last photo of her son, taken on his birthday, weeks before he was killed / Photo Mikel Ferreira
The videos of the Metro are decisive to clarify the circumstances of the arrest and murder of Wilfreiber Leandro Campos Molina. The Metro was introduced by the PNB officials who detained him, according to witnesses; in the Metro they found his body. Where are those videos? It is the question that the adolescent's family members ask themselves.
On February 21, 2018, Renato Campos went to the Public Ministry for the first time to demand that the murder of his son be investigated. It was attended by the 101° prosecutor, José Miguel Quintero. Five days later, Thaína Molina made a similar effort before the Ombudsman's Office. In both cases they were assured that they would find the culprits and punish them according to the law.
Thaína did not settle. Alone and without knowing the procedures, she went to ask for explanations from Cicpc. For 30 minutes she said what she knew about the crime. They heard her, recorded her complaint and asked her to wait. The investigation is supposed to have formally started on March 1. Two weeks later they assured her that the inquiries were following their normal course. "They only called me to tell me that they are reviewing the videos of the Metro, because the culprits should be there," he said.
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“I do not want this to happen to another person”
Thaína Molina
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That would be the last call of the investigators who received the parents of the murdered youth. Therefore, on May 16, 2018, three months after the homicide, they returned to the Public Prosecutor's Office. They occupied the fifth place in the queue to be attended in the reception of the Prosecutor's Office, where they left a communication addressed to Beysce Loreto, Director of Procedural Action of the Public Ministry, with a copy to the 104th Office of the Protection of Children and Adolescents. The demand was legitimate and simple: to expedite the investigations, that the crime does not go unpunished.
Until then, Cicpc officials in charge of the case had not given them answers about the revision of the Metro videos. The parents of Wilfreiber Leandro began to suspect that there was a deliberate intention to shelve the matter, entangle it in bureaucratic procedures and, ultimately, cause its exhaustion.
The detectives assigned to the Division against Homicides of the El Paraiso police station, Jesús Claudes and Gregorí Parra, were consulted by Proiuris on the progress of the investigations. "It is being investigated" they say. The same was answered by the director of the scientific and criminal police, Douglas Rico, when asked about the case of Wilfreiber Leandro, in a press conference on other issues that he offered on Monday, March 19, 2018. Meanwhile, Quintero, the prosecutor, is limited to wait for Cicpc officials to report results.
Renato fights against frustration. "The two policemen do not answer my calls, their numbers send me straight to the answering machine. The Prosecutor's Office does not call us either", he said.
Thaina, courageous, decided to face the investigators on April 30, 2018.
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- We presume that the deceased was electrocuted, said the chief detective of the CICPC, Jesus Chauter, in the El Paraíso Police Station.
-Do not. I have proof that my son died from the detachment of the neck, refuted the mother.
-Madam, we just presume ...
-I have the death certificate. I spoke with the pathologist, insisted Thaina and took the death certificate from a folder.
- Those are evidences that we are still compiling, we continue investigating, the detective excused himself.
"You presume, I have proofs" replied the woman.
"The case is totally dead there. Where do I have to go? What do I have to do to make that happen? What has happened to the case? Without politics, simply looking for answers" she said to Proiuris in the midst of her despair.
By elementary common sense, the mother of Wilfreiber Leandro is still determined to get the videos of the Metro: "They tell me that they saw the videos of days 17 and 18, but where are those of February 19, 20 and 21 . My son was killed on February 21 and they found him in a subway station. Did he walk alone to that station and supposedly get electrocuted? The other days where he was in? He was kidnapped four days. That's a fact".
The parents of the murdered boy have suggested to the investigators that they inquire about two details: Wilfreiber Leandro appeared with his hair shaved (when he left his house he was not like that) and with a plaid flannel that he had changed before, because when he was caught It had an orange color. On these two inconsistencies, they have not received answers either.
In spite of everything, Thaína and Renato do not give up on their purpose. So much so, that they took it upon themselves to look for the witnesses who say that the victim was arrested by PNB officials, and managed to get their testimonies included in the file.
Since their son was buried on February 28, next to the tomb of deputy Robert Serra, in the General South Cemetery, the life of Renato and Thaína took on another meaning: that justice be done for the death of their son . "I do not want this to happen to another person", the mother repeats.
Still, Thaina insists on asking herself: Did the police arrest him? Did they kill him? Why? Where did they take him? What happened to him between February 17 and 21? Why did the delivery of the body take so long?
Now, she does not ask where Leandro is, she already knows. She sits in one of the armchairs of her house, facing a balcony, with a lost look, and thinking about the facts. She remember her son. Tears, stubborn, return. Wilfreiber Leandro does not.
