"Powerless". That's how Gerardo says he feels, the man who was stabbed by a parking attendant in a vacant lot in Arrecife last November 4th. And the fact is that the affected person does not understand how it is possible that his aggressor, who also had numerous police records, was released after being arrested for stabbing him. "I escaped, but who knows?", questions this resident of the capital, who believes that "the laws are badly made".
The events occurred in the vacant lot located next to the Arrecife Bingo and not near the hospital as the National Police reported at the time. According to Gerardo, he and part of his family had their cars parked there and were going to pick them up to go to the hospital, as one of his daughters had just suffered a traffic accident. "My son-in-law was in front and there were two parking attendants who told him that they were short of money, that he should leave them some. My son-in-law told them that he didn't have any change and one of them told him that he was going to puncture or break the car," the victim relates.
However, at that moment, Gerardo explains that he was behind with his wife and did not realize what was happening. "I saw them talking as if nothing was happening," he says. However, after getting in the car, he saw how one of the parking attendants "took a stone" to "throw it" against the car where another of his daughters, his son-in-law, and their child, of only four months, were traveling. "He was going to throw it where the child was, who was being tied to the seat by his mother and it was a stone bigger than my head," says Gerardo, who then pounced on the parking attendant "to prevent the aggression". "That's where the struggle was and where he stabbed me in the arm and chest. He ran away and then they arrested him," he narrates.
Gerardo's own wife was the one who took him to the hospital. And the fact is that the affected person believes that if he had waited for the ambulance, he would not be alive now. "I saw that it was not going to arrive, because I was getting more and more dizzy, and not because of seeing the wound, but because I was losing blood," he recalls. According to the hospital's injury report, he received a stab wound in the forearm, which caused a 10-centimeter wound affecting two tendons, and another in the chest. He was admitted there for a day, but because Gerardo requested "voluntary discharge" since the daughter who had had the traffic accident was in serious condition.
The alleged aggressor, free with a restraining order "that he violates"
The alleged aggressor, according to the National Police at the time, was arrested the next day. However, after testifying in the Court of Instruction number 2 of Arrecife, he was released, although with charges for a crime of threats and another of injuries and with the prohibition of approaching Gerardo and the rest of his family members victims of the events to less than 500 meters.
According to the court order, the defendant was "expressly" warned that "within the distance subject to the prohibition of approach" was "the vacant lot near the Arrecife Bingo", as the victims' home is nearby. However, Gerardo claims that his aggressor has "violated" the restraining order "at least twice", one of them on November 15, when the affected person alerted the emergency services after seeing him "sitting on the curb of the vacant lot near the Bingo", according to the complaint he filed that same day.
Thus, although Gerardo gives "thanks to God" for now being able to tell what happened, he fears that the events may be repeated, not only with him or his family, but with any other person. "I escaped, but who knows? You feel devastated, it ruins your life in a moment," he says. "Without realizing it, you don't know if you're going to be here tomorrow, no matter how much you try to take care of yourself, not smoke. One of these guys gets you and ruins your life. And if he had caught the child, he would have screwed up all our lives", he says, while complaining, not about the functioning of the Justice or the Police, whom he thanks for having done "what they could", but about the laws. "The law is badly made, but by keeping quiet we don't fix anything. We have to denounce," concludes this man.
