During the last few days, the case of Virgilio Aguilar Méndez, an eighteen-year-old young man from Guatemala, generated a lot of controversy in the United States. After an altercation with Florida police that ended in the death of an officer, the young man was detained while facing charges of involuntary manslaughter. From a group, they launched a request to publicize his case and demand his release, since they assure that he did not commit any crime, that the confrontation was provoked by the agents and that the death occurred naturally.
Everything happened on May 19, 2023, according to the order in Change.org which was promoted by the civil organization The Guatemalan-Maya Center. The young man, who is indigenous-Maya, according to the information indicated in the request, was standing outside the motel where he was staying while talking on the phone with his father. At that time, he was waiting for a court date to regularize his immigration status, while working on a farm in the Sunshine State.
They arrested a Guatemalan for the death of a police officer in Florida
While standing on a public road, Virgilio Aguilar Méndez was approached by Sergeant Kunovichwho started yelling at the young man because he seemed suspicious, always according to the order made on the platform change. Given this, the Guatemalan, whose mother tongue is the Mam dialect that is spoken in the northwest of his country, He tried to tell her that he has almost no knowledge of English and that he was just standing next to the place where he was staying..
The failed communication led to a physical struggle in which several officers applied physical force against the young man. As a result of the confrontation, Kunovich suffered a heart attack and died hours later in the hospital.. Although the death was supposedly ruled natural causes by coroners, the St. John's County Sheriff's Office and the Florida Seventh Judicial Circuit Attorney's Office They accused the Guatemalan of aggravated involuntary manslaughter of a police officer.
Since then, The young man is being held without bail in a county jail, isolated by the problem of not being able to communicate fluently in English. Given this panorama and public statements in which it was indicated that Virgilio was found at a criminal scene, The group demands that the young man be released and that the case be disseminated. For that, he requested the intervention, among others, of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
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