On Monday, President Luis Abinader promoted Montecristi police second lieutenant Salvador Sanchez, who resisted law-breaking demands by the Montecristi senator Ramón Antonio Pimentel Gomez (Moreno Arias). Sánchez refused to release a close friend of the legislator who was under arrest at the police station. A video went viral with the exchange between the senator and the Police, leading to the President’s decision. The policeman was right and the senator was wrong in his action.
“I am arranging the promotion of 2nd Lieutenant Salvador Sanchez, commander of the police detachment in Castañuelas, Montecristi, as recognition of the fulfillment of his duty and his attachment to the law,” said the President in a tweet on Monday, 23 November 2020.
Montecristi senator for the ruling PRM, Ramón Antonio Pimentel Gómez (Moreno Arias) had visited the Castañuelas Police station to order the release of his close friend Richard Rivas Mendoza (Tibiche). Rivas Mendoza was under arrest for violent behavior.
The video went viral on social media networks. It showed the senators arriving at the station and demanding the release of Richard Rivas Mendoza “Tibiche.” The videos show the politician reproaching the officers at the station and commenting that he had made a call to the Minister of the Interior and Police, who had supposedly communicated with the director of the National Police to order them to release “Tibiche.”
The senator said he had spoken to the Minister of Interior & Police. Interior & Police Minister Jesus Antonio Vasquez (Chu) denied the conversation.
The senator said the police officers had to comply with the order to release Tibiche in respect of the government party and to him as a high-ranking government official.
In addition, the senator had demanded that each of the Police at the station give their names. In the video, one of the police observes, “we’re fired!.”
The case went viral after it was reported by Montecristi reporter, Lenin Báez Frías and commented on by muckraking journalist Marino Zapete. What is now known is that senator Moreno Arias had hidden “Tibiche” for four months on a farm of his and after winning the senate seat felt that the man could return to normal life because with his support Rivas Mendoza was “untouchable,” even when there were three arrest orders out for him.
“This is an order… that we assume as a party and as a government… you acted against the party, the government is us,” the senator is heard saying to the lieutenant who arrested Tibiche, in the video recorded at the police station and shared on social media.
“I am acting on a court order,” responds the lieutenant. “If I have to go to Internal Affairs or to the Interior and Police, I will,” the officer responds to the senator’s reproaches.
According to the report by Báez Frías, Tibiche was under arrest for having attacked Cristopher Reynoso of the El Palmar neighborhood in Castañuelas on the head, and six days later beat Yanira Vásquez with a knife after she filed a complaint against him. Later, he tried to stab Aracelis Metz. A man identified as Tomatico was then injured in the back when he intervened in Metz’s defense.
After the video went viral, senator Pimentel Gómez (Moreno Arias) went public on Z101 Digital radio station to apologize to Dominican society for his reproaching six police officers who had apprehended a man with three arrest warrants. In a second apology, the senator would argue he was defending an innocent man.
“For that attitude, I apologize to society, to the Senate and to the Montecristi society that elected me,” said the senator. He said that the person for whom he went to mediate at the police station was a friend of his who had been under arrest for six days. “I went to mediate. I called Yadira Vasquez from the station. They did not reach an agreement,” he said.
On Monday, the National Police issued a note explaining that Rivas Mendoza was arrested in a joint operation with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Montecristi by means of arrest warrant No. 611-1-2020-EAUJ-00412 for allegedly having threatened to kill a woman on several occasions and attempting to murder her with a knife. The Police say Rivas Mendoza is also accused of injuring in the head a minor, in violation of Articles 309-1 of the Dominican Criminal Code and Article 396, paragraphs A and B of Law 136-03 for the system of protection and fundamental rights of children and adolescents.
Read more in Spanish:
El Nuevo Diario
Diario Libre
Listin Diario
Hoy
Diario Libre
N Digital
Hoy
El Dia TV (21:00)
23 November 2020