Story By: Maja Mishevksa, Sub Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash

This teenager was shot dead by cops who rammed him off his motorbike on his 18th birthday and two officers have now been arrested.

Birthday boy Lucas Nahuel Veron was killed in the La Matanza area of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires during a police chase.

Veron was reportedly on a motorbike with a friend identified in reports by the nickname Moneda (Coin) and they were on their way to buy drinks for his birthday party.

They were then chased by a patrol car with two officers inside, for reasons that are unclear, and which are currently under investigation.

According to local newspaper Infobae, the patrol car crashed into the motorbike sending the teens falling to the ground and Cristian Caraballo, the victim’s uncle, told local newspaper Clarin: “They fell off the motorbike and ran away.

“Lucas stopped only a few metres away, turned around and the cop who had got out of the patrol car shot at him. His friend ran away and the patrol car left the scene.”

The friend named as Moneda rushed to a friend’s house nearby and called his parents. Some family members then accompanied him to the scene of the incident and took Veron to the Simplemente Evita Hospital where he died shortly after being admitted.

Clarin report preliminary analysis shows the victim was shot once in the chest with the bullet passing through his body and out of his back.

Two police officers, named in Clarin as Ezequiel Benitez and his girlfriend Cintia Duarte, have been arrested and charged with homicide and improper use of a firearm.

According to local newspaper Cronica, both cops have refused to give statements to the judge and prosecutors in the case.

Cinthia, the victim’s sister, to local television channel C5N that Moneda had been threatened by cops who told him to say that they had committed a robbery.

The victim’s uncle Caraballo told Clarin the cops “have criminal records of violence” and that “Lucas was a good boy, loved by everybody”.

The case is being investigated by the Internal Affairs unit who have confiscated the officers’ badge and weapons.

Only the victim’s parents will be allowed to attend his funeral because of the coronavirus crisis.

The investigation is ongoing.

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