Story By: Amanda Morales, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News

This Argentine cop has been released from custody over claims he used excessive force when defending himself during an armed robbery by firing 18 shots into a gunman’s alleged teenage accomplice who had lured him into a trap.

The attempted robbery happened when police officer Osvaldo Nicolas Rendichi, 24, went to meet Lucas Adrian David Barrios, 18, in the Isla Maciel neighbourhood in the city of Avellaneda in the province of Buenos Aires, eastern Argentina.

Rendichi had reportedly agreed to pay 17,000 ARS (192 GBP) for a PlayStation 4 that Barrios was selling on social media, and when they met the teenager reportedly asked the police officer, who was dressed in civilian clothes, to go down an alleyway with him to collect it.

The officer says an armed man then appeared and threatened to rob him so he opened fire, after identifying himself as a police officer, and seeing the other gunman shooting.

Barrios was hit in the ensuing gunfight whilst the other man ran away, dropping his pistol.

The officer went to Avellaneda police station number 1 after the incident, handing over his police-issue Bersa pistol and a 9-millimetre Tanfoglio pistol which he said he had picked up after the robber dropped it.

Barrios was taken to Fiorito Hospital where he later died.

The police officer claimed he only fired four shots in the shootout, however an autopsy indicated that Barrios alone had been shot 18 times by the officer’s pistol in the abdomen, chest, and knee.

The victim’s father David Barrios said that he had only been working some 30 metres from the scene of the incident and denied that officer’s version that there had been a robbery attempt, saying: “the 18 shots that were heard were from the same pistol, that of Osvaldo Nicolas Rendichi.”

The victim’s mother Claudia Chamorro, 39, added: “I was at home and I heard the noises, but they were so continuous that I thought someone was hammering some metal sheets. Then I went out and saw the crowd, I found my son lying there and we put him in a car to go to the hospital.”

The police officer was held in investigative custody for over a month but has now been released on the orders of judge Brenda Madrid, who opposed a request for preventive detention from prosecutor Elbio Laborde.

The charges were changed from “simple homicide aggravated by the use of a firearm” to homicide “with excess in legitimate self-defence”.

The officer remains suspended as the investigation is ongoing.

The victim’s father said: “I don’t know what my son was really doing but if my son was doing something wrong they should have taken him into custody and I could go see him in a prison or a hospital, that’s what a police officer should do. But he’s dead.”

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