Relatives Of Murdered Young Man Ask For Severe Punishment For Those Responsible

In the early hours of Sunday, Dec. 11, a young man was killed after he was struck by a stone thrown from the pedestrian bridge on Avenida 27 de Febrero in front of the Olympic Center, while he was returning to his residence. His family has urged the authorities to apprehend the culprit and give him severe punishment, Diario Libre reported.

The victim who has been identified as 29-year-old Joel Raphael Cabrera Espino was an engineer.

"We hope that justice is done, that they find the person responsible, and that they do not release him. That they arrest him and that they give him the punishment they deserve," was the request of Claribel Cabrera, Joel's mother.

She explained that her son, a dedicated worker, was returning to El Café de Herrera after wrapping up a meeting with coworkers from the telecommunications company where he worked in Santo Domingo Este.

According to Claribel, the family became distressed in the early morning hours and started calling until they learned from meeting attendees that Joel had left at 4:00 in the morning. They then traced the young man's route and found him after 7:00 a.m. in front of the Olympic Center, where a team from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif) was already conducting the investigation.

Complaints regarding the lack of transparency of the current investigation process were made by Juan Francisco Espino, who also claimed that the process carried out in Inacif has been slow and they still do not have a precise time for the body to be delivered to him.

According to the National Police, 10 people have been detained for questioning, and they are examining the videos that are available from the scene to see if the offender is one of them.

"Our agents have in their possession more than 10 people for investigative purposes, one of them with a similar profile to the person who is presumed to have thrown this stone that hit this driver, causing his death," said the National Police spokesman, Diego Pesqueira.

However, he maintained that they must wait for the analyzes that are made of the films that are in place and others that are being managed to establish all the circumstances of the event.