A Thief is Saved from a Lynching in Central Havana by the Arrival of the Police

The thief was captured on Galiano street, in Centro Habana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 5 May 2022 — A thief was stoned and beaten with a stick this Thursday in the middle of Galiano street, in Centro Habana, after being identified by several of his victims, a group of private workers in the area. According to the self-employed, the man, along with two others, are dedicated to stealing from stores, cafeterias and other businesses.

“About a year ago this subject staged a robbery three blocks from the La Época store and today they detected him again and recognized him,” says a neighbor who witnessed the attempted lynching.

“Several entrepreneurs followed behind him and threw stones at him. The criminal, to defend himself, also threw stones but finally they caught him and hit him with a stick,” details the neighbor. “If the police did not arrive they would have killed him. The man was bleeding from the head.”

The thief, about 55-years-old and black, had to be transferred by police officers to the Luis Galván Soca polyclinic to be treated in the emergency room.

According to witnesses, given the injuries caused to the thief, a discussion arose between the private workers and the people who came to see what was happening, who asked the victims “not to hit him anymore, not to take justice into their own hands.”

Last Tuesday, in Camagüey, another thief was captured after stealing a girl’s cell phone on the street. A video that went viral on social networks, shared by the Kuba x Inside page, recorded the outrage and the cries of people upon learning of the robbery.

A large number of residents of Calle Segunda Transversal, between San Rafael and Carretera Central, participated in the capture of the criminal, who was handed over shortly after to a police patrol that arrived at the scene and tried to calm things down.

In recent months, social networks have been filled with complaints in which citizens ask that urgent measures be taken in the face of the increase in assaults in the country. Some also complain that there are police officers to repress protests and prevent alleged crimes against the State, but not to find thieves in the neighborhoods.

The Government does not give figures for robberies and thefts or violent assaults, so it is impossible to determine when crime increases or decreases. Nor do the official media address this type of case or the possible waves of robberies, generally limiting themselves to covering only thefts in the state sector and, in many cases, magnifying those events.

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