Savage Realities of Murder in the Capital

Every day I think I've seen it all, I see something new and horrifying. In this case, it was a man shot 5 times in broad daylight in front of a little food stand in the city center. No, that's not the horrifying part. The horror set in when the woman (who has the food stand) had to clean the crime scene herself, and then………here comes the horror part……….had to cook for the late-lunch crowd using the same pot she used to clean the blood away, only a few minutes after.

Here, let me show you:

Pic1: 22 year old Amilcar Moreno was a taxi driver. Evidentally, he was being extorted by gang members and refused to pay. They shot him 5 times in the back at about 10:15am. I am constantly harping on the fact that the gangs are waging war against public transportation, and the police are doing not a lot to prevent it. To be fair, it's not the police, they do what they can. It's the governmental policies toward regulation of public transportation that have to be fixed. But there I go again, proselytizing.

Pic2: A little girl watches the police bag the body to haul it away. At every murder scene I've been to, there are always squads of little kids checking it out, which, to me, fits squarely in the "that's not cool" category. If any parents are reading this, if you happen to stroll by a homicide, please do yourself a favor and don't put your kids on your shoulders so they can see better. Thank you.

Pic3: Also a common, depressing side effect of crime scenes, the friends and family coming face to face with the death of a loved one.

Pic4. Here, the food vendor is rinsing the blood and, uh, whatever else ended up on the sidewalk after Amilcar Moreno was shot 5 times in the back. I would also remark in passing that there are no suspects for the crime, and it will probably go unsolved. News of this, also, was barely mentioned in the press, because it's so common.

Pic5: here the food vendor, who declined (wisely) to be identified, prepares lunch and dinner. The pot on the stove is the same used to clean the blood only a few minutes before.

Also taking place concurrently as the above unpleasantness, two blocks away the chief of the police force (Tobar Prieto) and the Minister of Security for the country (Rene Figeroa) were meeting with members of the press, presumably about the little old gigantic homicide rate. Yes, that was a bit of irony, and for that I am sorry.