Community cuts off his fingers and physically assaults suspected thief in Soacha

The community of the municipality of Soacha (Cundinamarca) is appalled by a self-handed justice case, as they assaulted an alleged thief to the point of cutting off several of his fingers and beating him until he lost an eye.

The incident occurred in the Ciudad Verde sector, where several residents of the sector pursued the alleged thief, who was fleeing, but was hit. After catching him, a group of people beat him brutally.

The alleged offender had several fingers cut off from his hands and, due to the attack, he lost one of his eyes. When the authorities arrived at the site, the man was already on the ground, seriously injured. It is that the inhabitants of that area denounced that the lack of public lighting and the slow reaction of the police generate insecurity.

Although in the sets they have security cameras and private surveillance in the goals. The people of that neighborhood say they are tired of insecurity, so they choose to resort to lynching against thieves.

For its part, the Police rejected what happened and asked citizens not to take justice into their own hands, because such actions have consequences, because they can be prosecuted, for personal injury or even attempted murder or murder.

It is noteworthy that, such situations arise because of citizen non-conformity due to the difficulty of prosecuting criminals, despite this, the authorities insist that being a participant in a lynching means taking the step from victim to perpetrator, an act that will only bring with it lengthy criminal proceedings

According to the authorities, in the first month of the year, 30,691 cases of theft were reported in the country. In January of last year, 25,888 cases were reported, representing an increase of 18.55 percent. In January 2021 there were 9,596, and the first 31 days of this year are 12,257, which represents an increase of 27.73 percent.

It was also known that during the cases of robbery violence was carried out against the victims. Among the cities that have had an increase in violent theft are, Bogotá had 3,211 cases in January of last year compared to 3,844 this year. Medellin went from 1,129 to 1,350 and Cali from 839 to 1,149. The report also gives an account of the behavior of the theft in the departments. Atlántico recorded 737 cases compared to 973 this year, and Cundinamarca rose from 235 to 701.

It should be recalled that, given the problem of insecurity in the country, President Iván Duque passed the Citizen Security Act, approved by Congress, which aims to improve security and address phenomena such as recidivism, which is associated in a high percentage with crimes such as theft.

The Public Security Act increased the penalties for persons linked to theft according to the amount of stolen goods. “Whoever seizes someone else's movable thing, with the purpose of obtaining profit for himself or another, shall be imprisoned for 32 to 108 months.”

In addition, the term of imprisonment would be 32 months to 48 months when the amount is less than four minimum wages, and shall be imprisonment from 48 months to 108 months when the amount is equal to or greater than four minimum wages. It should be noted that these changes are already in effect.

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