On March 26, like every day, Josué García “El Tortolita” boarded a bus with an accomplice to attack the passengers. He didn’t count on one of them being armed and shooting him. El Tortolita died instantly and his accomplice was injured.
That was the last robbery of “El Tortolita”. The Guatemalan National Police released the information and noted that an accomplice, identified as Vidal Alfredo Barillas Herrera, has been arrested.
The news would not have gone further if it hadn’t been for the reaction of the mother of “El Tortolita”, who, having been warned and presenting herself at the site of the robbery, declared through tears: “My son got up early to attack the buses, like always, but they killed him.”
The news has gone viral again.
According to the offender’s mother, her son “He didn’t hurt anyone”, “he didn’t shoot anyone, he just attacked them”.
“El Tortolita” was no rookie. According to the police, both he and Barillas Herrera were already known to have intercepted buses on the Palín-Escuintla highway (Guatemala), where they used to assault drivers and passengers alike.
Precisely on that route, in a bus bound for the Central de Mayoreo (CENMA), a passenger, who later fled the scene of the crime, shot the “Tortolita”, who remained on the ground. Barillas managed to get off the bus and ended up with a leg injury. The police managed to capture him and took him to the hospital, where he was taken into custody.
“When Barillas Herrera got off the bus, he observed the departments of the National Civil Police and in the attempt to escape he suffered a sprained ankle, which required medical intervention, with relative police detention”, the police explained to the officers.
“El Tortolita” had already been arrested in the past for the crimes of robbery, possession of drugs for consumption and extortion.
Yet every time he managed to break free. According to the police it is a common situation because most of the time the victims do not report the criminals.
Who was
Josué had a long criminal record, although no one knows for sure why he was released on all the occasions he was detained, but the most concrete thing was because his victims did not report him. In this sense, the 29-year-old murdered had already been arrested for various crimes, the local police explained to the Guatemalan media.
The Guatemalan press reported that “El Tortolita” was originally from the neighborhood of El Hospital, municipality of Amatitlán. They also detailed that both Josué and Vidal were members of a gang, i.e. imembers of the Mara Salvatruchaa gang which has a presence in Central America (especially Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) and which is notable in that its members have tattoos all over their bodies and share their own linguistic code.
Among the main activities of this group are extortion, organized protection extortion and minor illicit substance trafficking activities, along with violence against women and some involvement in human trafficking, according to an Office document of the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.