Police and law enforcement authorities interrogated various people yesterday regarding the murder of Ramon Dario Cabrera, a former National Police sergeant also known as “Cabrerita.” Cabrera was gunned down on Wednesday night on Estrella Sadhala Avenue in Santiago while parking his vehicle at a gas station at Las Colinas. One of the victim’s sisters, who asked not to be identified, attributed her brother’s slaying to a “betrayal within the police force.”
Another family member said that Cabrera received a call on his cell phone at 7:45pm on Tuesday, inviting him to play softball at a park near Las Colinas where the shooting occurred. Witnesses say that as many as 29 bullets were fired at the victim’s car and that the gunmen were shooting from a blue Honda Civic, which was later found abandoned in the Tamboril area. Beside the dead man’s body was a Smith & Wesson pistol whose numbers had been filed off, three Fall shells, another from a .45 gun and another from a 9mm.
Cabrera had been suspended from the National Police on 8 October and was subsequently dismissed on 29 October. Journalist Esteban Rosario, who produces the TV program “Behind the News,” told the Diario Libre that the ex-police agent called him recently to say he had been detained as the authorities tried to connect him to an attempt made on the life of popular journalist and radio show host Euri Cabral on 29 September.
According to Rosario, Cabrerita said that fellow police agents Fernando “La Soga” de los Santos, Antonio “La Cobra” Garcia and Jose Miguel “Lopecito” Lopez were also being investigated in connection with the attempted murder of Cabral. The four agents together formed part of a group within the National Police known as the Death Squad. The NP’s Santiago spokesman Damian Arias confirmed that the three other men had also been suspended.
Since his arrival on the police force in the early 90s, Cabrera had converted himself into the agent most feared by local delinquents and was notorious for his participation in alleged armed encounters with criminal elements. Although considered by many to be a true “hatchetman” of the police force, a family member described Cabrera as a humble person and a great sportsman, who was more loved than hated in his neighborhood.