The murder of the Brazilian woman, both in its structure and the background of the killer, illustrates one of the risks inherent in this city: the blind violence of people who pose a risk to themselves and others. This is how the 30-year-old man, FNA, was found not guilty yesterday. Murder of Maria Vilma das Dores Cascaro da Silva Bosco. This is not the first time the Justice Department has determined that it does not understand the intentionality of its actions. And yet he was on the street.
In early December 2024, he was admitted to Torquato Hospital by order of a magistrate after causing personal injury and damage in Recoleta. Last Thursday, a man was walking along Calle Corrientes in the Abasto district when he punched a 69-year-old woman, causing her to die after a short period of suffering in the hospital.
FNA is in and out of psychiatric hospitals whenever she feels like it. He is a direct fugitive from a mental health facility that does not have a ward for people in conflict with the law. Similar stories are known whenever these people reach extreme moments that cause death. What followed was a state that tolerated numerous admissions to police stations, compulsory hospitalizations with little effect or duration, and being a walking time bomb. The problems created by mental health laws that experts in the field define as inefficient intersect with the revolving door of justice that is currently closing with declarations of repeat offending, as restrictions on release that are technically understandable but incomprehensible from the point of view of the society that expects protection.
The city government launched a controversial operation called “Special Order and Cleanup” in April last year. The operation was an attempt to ensure that Buenos Aires had the strength to remove homeless people from the streets in the run-up to elections. The FNA was in such a state when it killed a Brazilian woman who arrived last July with her daughter studying medicine at UBA. The controversy erupted when Jorge Macri, head of the Buenos Aires government, published photos of the operation. “It is mandatory to maintain the safety of public spaces and strengthen sanitary conditions to ensure the health of all residents,” McCrista administration officials said at the time.
“We will respond to the complaints of neighbors and guarantee the cleanliness and safety of public spaces, plazas and sidewalks. The streets are not a place to live, and the city has a system of care, including shelters for the homeless,” Jorge Macri said at the time, in what was understood as a campaign promise.
But this danger to the neighborhood continues, as illustrated by the murder of a homeless man who has been charged at least 20 times with various crimes over the past 11 years and who has repeatedly evaded judicial protection.
Buenos Aires authorities are adamant that they maintain pressure to avoid ranchadas, which are groups of people who live on the streets and gather in places they consider their own. They also asserted that, despite the fact that human rights groups are upholding a judicial proposal to allow homeless people to carry knives to cut food obtained from charity, they are trying to remove objects that could be used as weapons from their hands. A similar knife was used by a homeless man in Palermo to kill engineer Mariano Barbieri in order to steal his mobile phone.
According to official information, 6 out of 10 adults, children and teenagers wandering on public roads suffer from some form of mental illness. This shows the magnitude of the problem currently exposed by the murder of María Vilma das Dores Cascarho da Silva Bosco, which took place on one of Buenos Aires’ main thoroughfares.
According to official information from August last year, 1,500 people spent the night outdoors and about 3,000 took shelter in inns.
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