The two detainees accused of having participated in the crime of the bus driver Pedro Barrientos, shot to death during a robbery of his unit on line 620 on April 3 in the La Matanza district of Buenos Aires, were released today for lack of evidence, although they will continue to being investigated in the case, reported judicial sources.
These are Alex Gabriel Barone (19) and Gabriel Alejandro Barone (24), who had already had a negative result last week from the electronic scanning test that did not detect traces of firearm deflagration in their hands or their clothes.
Judicial sources reported that the prosecutor in the case, Gastón Duplaá, from the La Matanza Homicide Functional Instruction Unit (UFI), decided today not to request pretrial detention for the Barones, so they were released. They were housed in Alcaidía No. 3 of Melchor Romero.
A spokesperson for the investigation clarified that, despite this resolution, the two “are not formally disassociated” from the case.
Meanwhile, there are three other suspects who continue to be detained, but as accused of the theft of the car allegedly used to commit the crime, the informants added.
The homicide of the bus driver Barrientos (55) was committed on April 3, after 4:30 a.m., when two criminals boarded a unit on line 620 at the stop located at the intersection of Bernardino Escribano and Cullen, in the Vernazza neighborhood, in the town from Virrey del Pino, from La Matanza, in the southwest of the suburbs.
Under threats with firearms, the criminals stole a passenger’s backpack and then shot at the defenseless driver, despite the fact that he offered no resistance.
While Barrientos died sitting behind the wheel of his unit, a civilian member of the City Police who was among the passengers drew his service weapon and fired at the assailants, who escaped.
At the scene, 16 shots were fired and a security camera recorded when the thieves ran away to the crossroads of a street where a Fiat Siena was presumably waiting for them in which they finally fled.
After the crime, drivers of 86 bus lines in the western area of the suburbs, summoned by the Union Tranviarios Automotor (UTA), initiated a measure of force and made cuts to demand security on route 3 and General Paz avenue, to the height of Lomas del Mirador.
In the middle of one of these protests, the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Sergio Berni, arrived at the scene and when he was giving an interview to the press he was attacked by the drivers who insulted him, stoned him and hit him with fists and kicks, for which he had to being removed from the place by personnel of the Infantry of the City Police and assisted at the Churruca Hospital for a fractured skull and collapse of the eye socket.
