Fear runs through the streets of Fontana, Chaco. Since May 17, Axel González, a 21-year-old day laborer, has been missing. His family and neighbors point to the police as the last ones to see him alive. The night before, at least three officers from the Second Police Station chased him into a wooded area, according to multiple witnesses who now fear coming forward.
“There is systematic abuse by the Fontana and Puerto Tirol police,” denounced lawyer Gabriela Tomljenovic, representing the family. “The kids don’t say anything because they know the change isn’t candy,” she added. The attorney said neighbors are so afraid they won’t even testify under a protected identity.
On the night of Saturday, May 16, Axel left his mother María Inés Gómez’s house to meet his girlfriend Ludmila Villordo. On the way, he ran into his friend Ariel Lázaro. In an audio message sent to his girlfriend, Axel said he was being chased by police who accused him of stealing a motorcycle. According to Lázaro, the young man took refuge in an area of woodland and marshes. Since then, nothing has been heard.
The family holds demonstrations demanding Axel’s safe return. “I will find you, beloved son, tell me where you are,” his mother cries as she walks the streets. She claims that officers from the Second Police Station were the last to see him alive. Witnesses, though preferring anonymity, confirm having seen the chase.
This is not the first time Axel has suffered police harassment. In 2024, plainclothes officers entered his home; on another occasion, they broke his ribs; and a third time, they forced him to hit a detainee under threat. His mother urged him to report it, but Axel refused for fear of reprisals. “It is possible that the young man was in the wrong place at the wrong time and knew something compromising,” a source in the case noted.
Attorney Tomljenovic reported that the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Luciano Santos, wasted valuable time in the first ten days. “He did nothing useful,” she stated. The lawyer requested that a federal force intervene, but Santos did not remove the Chaco Police. Only after multiple complaints was a team formed with prosecutors Julieta Arolfo and Noelia Encina, and the intervention of the Gendarmerie was ordered.
The prosecutors requested forensic analysis of the phones of the six officers on duty that early morning. The analysis will be carried out by the General Directorate of Investigations and Technological Support for Criminal Investigation (Datip). Meanwhile, Axel’s father and his lawyer requested the arrest of the three patrol car officers, but the prosecutors refused.
It is suspected that the same officers tried to divert the search by “planting” a flip-flop in the area to suggest that Axel ran away and got lost in a marsh. “It was extremely cold and he had consumed substances, which conditions any reaction,” Tomljenovic pointed out.
The defense also criticizes the criminal charges against friend Ariel Lázaro, whom they consider a key witness. “We lost the most important witness,” the lawyer lamented. Additionally, they reported that prosecutor Santos charged seven civilians, ordered pretrial detention, and then declared himself incompetent. “He spit on the barbecue and went to hell,” Tomljenovic summarized.
The family met with Deputy Security Secretary Juan de la Cruz González, and Axel’s sister Cintia exploded when she learned that the Fontana officers had been transferred to the metropolitan area. “What guarantee do you give me that they weren’t there tampering with the investigation?” she confronted him.
The case of Axel González adds to a long list of young people missing in contexts of police violence. The family demands truth and justice, while the Fontana community lives in fear. “We don’t want them to forget Axel,” they cry.
para mi estos vagos drogadictos siempre victimizandose seguro se metio en algo turbio y ahora lloran la policia hace su laburo y los zurdos rompen las bolas argentina necesita mano dura che firmado el_fiera_82
Para mí esto huele a terrorismo de estado otra vez. Axel desaparecido por la yuta asesina de Fontana, siempre el pobre laburante perseguido mientras los patrones zafan. Yo creo que es complicidad mediática, basta de callar. Justicia para Axel y cárcel para los giles uniformados carajo.