A man was arrested early Sunday morning in the Villaverde district of Madrid for attempting to murder his partner, who had been stabbed in the head with a drill while her 14-year-old son was present. The woman was transferred to a hospital with a poor prognosis, although there is no fundamental fear for her life while the man is at the police station awaiting trial. Both the alleged attacker and the victim are of Peruvian origin and between 30 and 35 years old. The arrest was made by a Civil Guard officer who had been in training for less than a week and was off duty: David Esteban, 27 years old. In fact, this was his first arrest.
It all started with a “help, help, help, help”. Between noon and 1am on Monday, the agent, based in the Rivas Vaciamadrid municipality of Madrid, had lunch with his girlfriend and father-in-law “under the house” on a terrace in the Plaza Mayor. , when he heard screams and calls for help from a woman coming out of a house on the ground floor of Number 10. All the alarms went off even though she was unarmed. “I didn’t think twice about it, it’s my duty as a Civil Guard, but it came from within, it’s what I had to do,” says Esteban.
The young man jumped out of his chair, ran over, reached through the window, and drew the curtains because he “couldn’t see anything” of what was going on inside. Then, through a window, he could see “the woman lying on the floor of a room, resting her elbows on the bed, and holding a drill in both hands, her head stuck in the left side.” The whole room was bloody. At that moment, he entered the block and saw a suspect carrying a backpack leave the house “screaming and slamming the door.” He stopped him right there. It turned out to be the suspected attacker, who is accused of attempted murder.
According to a spokeswoman for the Guardia Civil, the woman was transferred to a hospital with a cautious prognosis, although there is no fundamental fear for her life. According to the spokeswoman, the tangle of hair prevented the piece from going deeper into her head.
In order to become part of the Guardia Civil, prospective agents must pass a competitive examination and complete a year’s training at the Academy in Baeza (Jaén), plus an additional year in a training session before graduation. David Esteban has only been based at the Rivas unit for a week and hopes to remain there once he has completed his training. “I entered last Monday and that was Sunday night, it’s my first arrest,” says the agent, who initially spent seven years in the army. “It was there that I discovered that this could be my future job and my true calling, so I made a career change,” he explains. Esteban, who feels “overwhelmed by the congratulations” of his colleagues, does not want to be in an office, preferring to patrol, “helping people”.
So far this black summer in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, on July 3, a woman was murdered in Alcalá de Henares in what is being investigated as another case of sexist violence. Three days later, a 37-year-old Dominican man was arrested after stabbing his partner, a 35-year-old Dominican woman, in Usera district; and on June 29, in Móstoles, another victim of sexist violence died at the hands of her ex-partner, from whom she had a restraining order.
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Telephone 016 supports victims of sexist violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 52 different languages. The number is not registered on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. They can also be contacted by email at [email protected] and by WhatsApp at 600 000 016. Minors can call Fundación ANAR on 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency, you can call 112 or National Police (091) and Guardia Civil (062). And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, from which an alarm signal with geolocation will be sent to the police.
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