César Palacios usually drives in a state of alert before any pedestrian that may appear in a pause in his march when he drives a trailer on the Perimetral road, in a west-east direction, especially before entering the av. 29 that leads to the port area of Trinitaria Island, south of Guayaquil.
When arriving at the traffic light located before taking access to that sector of ports, he usually keeps an eye out for having his windows raised and be prepared for any antisocial. He carries an iron in his cabin as a preventive weapon.
That has Palacios in fear of being robbed. A week ago he used that object against an individual who rushed into the cabin and tried to take a cell phone that he had inside next to his steering wheel.
“The situation is complicated at the entrance, I walk with one eye open and the other looking both ways, the Police do their job, but the crime is the same,” says the driver.
In that area of the Perimeter road there are several points of conflict with this problem. One of those is located at the height of Trinitaria Island, on the entrance road to the port area. There, several light car drivers also suffer theft of their mobile phones or other belongings. Therefore, even businesses in the area take precautions.
A worker at a grocery store on Trinitaria Island opens a gate to allow customers to enter, including a team from this newspaper. That access is kept closed to control the entry of antisocials that swarm via 29 and take in seconds the belongings of drivers and even customers of businesses like that store.
CNJ ruling ‘favors suspects’, prosecutors and Police question
Another bus driver on line 20, Orlando Zambrano, also says that when leaving 23rd Street, in the Batallón del Suburbio, to go through the Perimetral road to Trinitaria Island, people who rob in groups tend to be located.
For this reason, at that traffic light where Calle 23 and the Perimetral road intersect, he chooses to close his doors and not pick up people, since on some occasions the criminals infiltrate as passengers and a few meters further on they begin to threaten with weapons and rob people. passengers and drivers. He, as well as his colleagues, have had to live those experiences.
Others, on the other hand, touch the driver’s window to distract him and an accomplice appears on the side of the passenger entrance door who puts his hand in the money collection cubicle and takes part of the money accumulated for the tickets.
Likewise, the news of starters or people who threaten with a knife and firearms usually appear in the middle of the traffic that is registered during peak hours on the viaduct that leads from Av. July 25 towards av. Pío Jaramillo and which leads to the Perimetral road, at the height of the Cuatro Mosqueteros nautical complex.
At various points along the perimeter road, police patrols and even personnel on foot can be observed. That, according to residents, should be intensified to prevent these scenarios, especially during hours of high movement of workers.
This week, in the social network accounts of the Corporation for Citizen Security of Guayaquil (CSCG), which works in coordination with ECU911, the operation of subjects on the Perimeter road was evidenced. Police gendarmes mobilized to the area before the news.
A resident of Trinitaria Island, Rolando, who asks not to identify himself by his full name, maintains that robberies of drivers are observed daily and there is little presence of uniformed personnel in the vicinity of the port area.
Behind the bars of his business, he requests that security cameras be installed on the entrance road to that sector and, in turn, both traffic agents and police officers work together to speed up traffic and protect the safety of drivers. , especially when there is container shipping.
María Josefa Coronel, director of the Judiciary Council of Guayas: ‘9 sentences is not what is desired; we cannot have corrupt judges’
Fireman Avenue
In other areas of the north, the situation is repeated with criminals who take advantage of road congestion to commit crimes against drivers, bystanders and bus passengers. Adonis Vargas, a worker in the Bim Bam Bum sector, in front of Los Ceibos, says that only last week there were four news, including an attempted robbery on him, on Av. of the Fireman at the height of the traffic distributor of the road to Daule.
On that occasion, the server who guards a property in the sector was retreating on foot towards the road to Daule, when two men on a motorcycle appeared in the middle of Avenida del Bombero and approached him to threaten him with a weapon. In a matter of seconds, he reacted and climbed a fence to enter a property. Thus he prevented the theft of his cell phone.
Several passers-by and workers who frequent the area live in fear of robberies that mostly occur in the mornings, between 07:00 and 09:00, and after 18:00, precisely at the time of entry and exit. of work activities.
In days past, likewise, -Vargas says- two antisocials were located in the middle of the avenue at the height of the detour towards av. Carlos Julio Arosemena, and using weapons they threatened the drivers so that they would give them their belongings, taking advantage of the pause in the movement of the vehicles during the so-called peak hours. Another day, a criminal assaulted the drivers and the accomplice was waiting for him on a motorcycle on the road to Daule.
He himself reported that on the morning of a day last week two nurses from a nearby center approached one of the flower beds of the place, since one of them threw a state-of-the-art iPhone phone to prevent it from being stolen in the middle of of the assault of criminals on a public transport bus that was circulating on Av. of the Firefighter. After the criminals got out, they got out of the unit and went back several meters to find the cell phone.
Orellana Ave.
On Orellana Avenue, business clerks mention that in many cases the antisocials take advantage of waiting for the red light of the traffic light to change during the so-called rush hours, at the intersection with Av. José Luis Tamayo, in a north-central direction.
Meters later, at the intersection of Orellana itself with Rodolfo Baquerizo Nazur, on the other hand, the robberies occur in the opposite direction, from center to north, say workers in the area.
Héctor León, who collaborates in a business in Orellana, at Sauces 8, comments that he usually observes the police presence at certain times, although he believes that this should be permanent in areas where robberies are reported, such as those two areas mentioned .
Some antisocials hide behind the bases of the power line columns in the central parterre or take advantage of the low visibility in the middle of the rains to act in traffic jams. Also, there are some that even start offering windshield cleaning and take advantage of some carelessness.
Weeks ago there was a case of attempted assault by armed individuals who were located in the flower bed and ran in front of a car to intimidate the occupants. Two policemen dressed in civilian clothes repelled the antisocials to avoid the fact, which was recorded and went viral on social networks.
The Police have remarked that they maintain operations with rounds and continuous patrolling, in addition to intelligence and investigative work in various areas of the city, as can be seen in the figures offered by the entity at the end of this week on its work to safeguard citizen security. and public order.
In Zone 8, which integrates Guayaquil with the Durán and Samborondón cantons, throughout these almost two months of the year, the Police have carried out 86,391 operations, which have left 962 people apprehended and 35 disbanded gangs. In addition, during the interventions, 287 firearms, 4,629 knives, and 6,914 ammunition have been seized, said General Víctor Zárate, commander of zone 8 of the National Police. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
