Marcelo Carrollexpert photojournalist Clarionehe told of the terror that took place Thursday night outside the gymnastics stadium, where a fan was killed and more than 100 injured following the actions of the Police who repressed fans who tried to insert tickets by hand when the doors were already closed.
Carroll, in charge of covering the match between Gimnasia and Boca, said he arrived at Juan Carmelo Zerillo around 9.15pm, fifteen minutes before the start of a duel that would have been transcendental for the title fight, four dates. from the end, and which ended up suspended after 9 minutes for lack of guarantees.
“When I arrived, all access to the press and to the stalls were blocked, fenced off. The police on horseback were there and that’s when the bar arrived that didn’t have tickets and wanted to enter as a prepo”, begins his story.
And he explained: “On the popular side, all the fans came to try to get in. They all gathered near the door. There was another large number of fans who had a ticket and showed it asking for access to the watch. the game”.
It was then that the worst began. “At one point the police got out of control and started throwing gas. The darkness of that road, which is practically inside the Forest, with the stones, the wounded and the smoke, turned a football night into a tremendous chaos, “he rebuilt. .
“There were creatures, people overflowing, bars that wanted to hit anyone … If they saw you with a camera they would come and beat you. You had to run. It was a mess. A mess.”
The photographer, with thousands of shots over the course of his career, said the tense situation lasted about 15 minutes, even though the police fired gas for nearly an hour, even after the meeting began.
With the balls rolling, says the reporter, the gases continued, the excesses “and the people who could cross the Forest because they couldn’t stand the smoke anymore.”
For Carroll, who never made it to the stadium, survival instinct made him determined to leave the epicenter of the crashes. However, traces of the pitched battle have been observed in the surroundings. There were hundreds of people who received assistance from the Civil Protection, blind and with respiratory problems due to tear gas.
“It was chaotic and you had to leave because you couldn’t stay there anymore. Then people started taking to the pitch. It was chaotic, I hadn’t seen him in football for 30 years. I’m 40 years behind,” reflects the photographer.
And he concluded: “It is a pity that there is a stadium like the Unico, a match of this type must be played in an obsolete one, where there are no conditions”.
Source: Clarin
