Jennyfer, a citizen residing in Arrecife, has reported to the National Police station that armed and hooded agents of the State Security Forces and Corps allegedly broke into her home last Tuesday at 5:00 a.m. by mistake.
"They came in hooded, with their weapons, they threw us to the ground," she began her testimony during an interview with this newsroom. Civil Guard sources explained to La Voz that the intervention "was in accordance with the law," it had "a court order," and that the confusion arose from the fact that the rental home in which Jennyfer lives with her three children "does not have a horizontal division" so her house and her neighbors' are registered as the same dwelling.
According to the complaint that La Voz has had access to, the citizen was sleeping last Tuesday, October 15, with her three children, two of them minors, in her house, when a group "of hooded men" entered the house breaking down the door and shouting "to the ground, get on the ground, hands up."
The woman attributes this situation to an operation by the Civil Guard, the National Police, Interpol, and the Colombian police carried out in her same building.
According to this statement, when they allegedly broke into her home, the woman only saw some flashlights, but when they turned on the light, she could see some "hooded men" who were "pointing" at her and her seven-year-old daughter "with pistols," while demanding that they get on the ground. Civil Guard sources indicate that the entry into the house occurred thinking that they were the people involved in the investigation, which, as La Voz advanced, is part of an operation against trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.
Meanwhile, another group of agents allegedly broke into the room of her two children, aged 14 and 21. In this case, she accuses one of the agents of having pointed one of them with a weapon, throwing him to the ground, and dislocating his arm.
At that moment, her brother, the 14-year-old, was allegedly approached, thrown to the ground, and suffered the dislocation of both arms. In addition, the teenager hit his chin against the ground.
The events date back to last Tuesday, when a joint operation of the Civil Guard and the National Police, as well as Interpol agents and the Colombian police searched a house in Arrecife, a vehicle, and a nightclub in Puerto del Carmen as part of a secret operation against trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.
Jennyfer assures that the agents began to search the house, lifted the mattresses, looked in the closets and in the furniture, while the family questioned what was happening.
At one point in the operation, according to her testimony, the assailants gathered the whole family in the living room and asked her why there was a fifth person in the house, a friend of the complainant. "They realized at that moment that it wasn't us," Jennyfer pointed out during a conversation with this newsroom, but "our neighbors who live wall to wall."
After 40 minutes of waiting, "a Civil Guard, head of the operation, apologized to me for the situation" and allegedly confessed that "it had been a mistake."
According to Jennyfer's testimony and the photographs she has sent to La Voz, the mistake resulted in four broken doors in the house, as well as anxiety and fear among her children. "They want to leave the island," she continues narrating. In addition, according to the injury reports that this newsroom has also been able to access, her 14-year-old son suffered abrasions on both forearms, an abrasion on his chin, and scratches, as well as left shoulder pain in the case of the 21-year-old son.
This citizen seeks that, in addition to the apology, the authorities take charge of compensating her family for the physical damages allegedly caused by the agents and also for the psychological consequences, since her children and she suffer anxiety and fear of continuing in the house and on the island since then.
Civil Guard sources assure that the legal way for this neighbor of Arrecife to be compensated is to file a claim with the Island Directorate where she exposes the damages and the injured party, which may be covered by the collective insurance that the Civil Guard and the Ministry of the Interior have.
