A video showed the tense moments that were experienced this Wednesday when a man nicknamed "Timba" was arrested in El Polvorín, in Santiago de Cuba, as the alleged perpetrator of the rape of a teenage girl.
The images - released by the journalist Yosmany Mayeta - although of poor quality and taken from a distance, did allow us to appreciate how in a few seconds the number of neighbors multiplied in the place moments before the individual was put into a patrol car.
"I didn't know that so many people lived in El Polvorín," commented the person who recorded the images in reference to the rapidly forming crowd.
Although it is not clearly seen in the video, apparently some of those present managed to hit the individual as he was being escorted to get into the police car.
"Look, they are hitting him, they are hitting him," can be heard in the images, which led the police to fire some shots into the air to disperse the crowd and prevent a possible lynching.
The shots made many scared people run away in different directions.
After the first patrol passed - in which the alleged rapist was supposedly riding - some police officers ran to get into a second car that drove off at full speed.
A later post from the officialist Facebook profile "Héroes del Moncada" justified the police action and the preventive warning shot "to disperse the residents who pounced on the detainee with the intention to attack him."
"Despite being a degrading fact, Cuba is a state of law and the Ministry of the Interior will always act to protect the lives of all its citizens, ensuring compliance with the law and due process," the official source stated regarding the incident, which occurred around eight o'clock this Wednesday morning.
Previously, Yosmany Mayeta had reported that a teenager, aged between 14 and 15 years old, is hospitalized after having been a victim of a sexual assault on Tuesday night.
The minor would have been raped by "Timba" - whose name has not been revealed - while she was at a street party in the Artes y Oficios neighborhood.
According to the previous testimony, the alleged rapist was out on parole, as he is currently serving a sentence in prison for rape.
It is not the first time that residents of Santiago de Cuba confront authorities to try to take justice into their own hands in a case of rape.
In February 2020, residents of Santiago de Cuba confronted the police with stones to lynch the rapist of an eight-year-old girl.
In that case, at the entrance of a residence, the alleged aggressor was beaten and objects were thrown at him in the face while he was protected by several police officers, who also fired into the air to scare off the people.
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