A Deputy Prosecutor for the Province of Santo Domingo was murdered yesterday, Tuesday 30 October after being hit by at least ten bullets in an extreme case of police and judicial negligence. The prosecutor, Omar Alvarez, was killed during a raid on a house in Reparto Rosa, Herrera in western Santo Domingo.
According to witnesses, after being arrested, the man whose house was being searched, Charlie Munoz Garcia asked Alvarez for the handcuffs to be removed in order to go to the bathroom to urinate and to inject himself with insulin. He returned with a pistol that he had hidden in the bathroom and shot Alvarez several times “until he was seated on the sofa where he died in the presence of a dozen policemen who were taking part in the search,” as reported in Diario Libre.
After committing the murder, Munoz ran into the street and used his 16-year old daughter as a shield in order to evade being shot the agents who were stunned by the killer’s fast actions. Another version of events, as reported in El Caribe, suggests that it was his daughter who tried to protect him from being shot.
Munoz was the subject of 117 complaints of fraud lodged by individuals and companies. Alvarez had gone to search his residence with fellow prosecutor Jorelvi Matos, acting on the more recent complaints.
Making matters even weirder, inside the house that was searched, the police found in addition to four guns, including the one used to kill the magistrate, 38 calves, 15 goats and at least 20 roosters and hens. The animals were located on the third floor that Munoz Garcia had fenced. The animals were lifted on a pulley contraption with ropes to the third floor. At the site, Nunez operated the Cooperative Savings, Credit and Multiple Services and Community Action Group and a law firm. Some of the neighbors who were consulted by reporters said that this was a front that the murderer used to cheat innocent and unsuspecting people who went to seek loans.
Charlie Munoz Garcia was described in the press as a former army lieutenant. He lived at the same building located at Maria Trinidad Sanchez 38, Barrio La Rosa, near the Prolongacion 27 de Febrero in Santo Domingo Oeste, with his family. He has four children.
Diario Libre reports that the chief of the National Police, Major General Jose Armando Polanco Gomez said that the actions of the prosecutors and the police were extremely negligent and that they were all under investigation.
In the meantime, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said that it was time to review search procedures and added that security measures need to be taken to prevent a repetition of this situation. He said the he feels deeply sorry and saddened by the crime and described prosecutor Omar Alvarez as a serious and hard-working man. “I knew him when I was the District Attorney of the National District, and from there he was promoted to the province of Santo Domingo,” he said. Alvarez had been working as a prosecutor for eight years. He leaves two orphaned children and his wife was eight months pregnant with their third.
Francisco Dominguez Brito said yesterday, Tuesday 30 October that an investigation would be carried out to determine why Munoz was free. An explanation is also needed for any connections he could have had that allowed him to keep farm animals in an urban dwelling.
Yeni Berenice Reynoso, National District Prosecutor, has asked where were the Police in all this.
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