The police announced that charges would be filed against the four patrol agents who murdered 25-year-old Arlene Perez as she sat in a parked car talking with her boyfriend, Juan Jose Herasme Alfonso, outside her home in Cuesta Brava of Arroyo Hondo, in the early hours of last Thursday. The boyfriend’s father, journalist Silvio Herasme Pena, told the media that the patrol opened fire without giving the couple any warning. The newspapers are reporting that the police officers then proceeded to use the couple’s car to drive the dead woman to hospital. The police version is that the officers were answering a call about a suspicious vehicle reportedly involved in a robbery. They say that when they approached the vehicle in Cuesta Brava, the driver reversed the car and their response was to open fire. The incident has provoked outrage in many of the newspapers’ opinion columns, including that of Listin Diario’s Ana Mitila Lora. Her “Mochila al hombro” comment says that the early hours of the morning are becoming more and more dangerous in Santo Domingo these days, and that a Dominican life is worth just RD$7 – the price of a bullet. She mentions a couple of other recent cases of police brutality and concludes that police reform – which has been underway for several years now – is not worthy of the name.