Yet More Portuguese Cultural Enrichment

Our Portuguese correspondent Afonso Henriques has translated an article from the Diário de Notícias (Daily News), dated the 9th of August, 2009:

Lisbon

They Pursued and Stabbed to Death a Young Man in Bairro Alto

[Bairro Alto at night does not vary much. Here are videos that show the environment: it goes from this to this. — translator]

The police authorities still haven’t revealed what led a group of Africans to run behind a group of three girls and a young man who ended up being killed after being stabbed. The local inhabitants speak of theft and drugs. They also say that the Africans “tried to get some from the girls”.

No one knows what started the crime of murder that victimized a nineteen-year-old male, stabbed in the chest and shoulder, at 03:30 last night, right in the middle of a public street [this implies that the street was crowded, although it is not clear about it. At that time most streets of Bairro Alto are indeed crowded but some contiguous streets are empty and only a few old men, drug addicts or recently-arrived illegals, live there. — translator] in Bairro Alto, Lisbon. The suspect was detained immediately by the PSP and preventively arrested. At the scene, local inhabitants pointed to various hypotheses: problems involved with drug trafficking, an attempt at theft, or because they were “messing with the girls” who accompanied the victim.

In the neighborhood, the DN [newspaper] spoke with a resident who witnessed the crime, at the corner of Atalaia street with the Plazza Água da Flor, close to the Bairro Alto Market. “I was in bed, trying to sleep, and heard someone screaming for someone to stop. I came to the window and saw a group of many blacks running for four whites, three girls and a guy,” she said.

“Right afterwards I heard a distressed screaming; it must have been when the guy was stabbed and stayed there lying on the sidewalk. The police were already on foot trying to get the blacks and managed to catch three of them. The others ran away,” she said, adding that “the knife stayed on the ground, covered in blood”.

The same woman remember that “then came an ambulance and a car with doctors that tried to save the guy for a long time, but he never responded. The policemen told the three girls to leave, and one of them was screaming that she was only going to leave with the guy. But he died there. Between 06.00 and 07.00 in the morning they took him away”.

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She adds that “the boy and the girls were all very good-looking and very young. They looked like university students”.

Concerning the motives for the crime, one women who lives close by said, “maybe, the others messed with the girls, the boy did not like it and confronted them…”

Another man believes it was an “attempt at theft that ended up badly”.

José, who has lived for many years in Bairro Alto and says he knows the area well, emphasizes that that quarter of Atalaia Street “is problematic, because that’s where drugs are sold. They take cover close to the municipal market to do their transactions. It is normal for big discussions, confrontations, and fights to take place there when the drug dealers try to ‘wash away’ and sell phony drugs”.

Officially, the metropolitan commandant of the PSP (Security Public Police) of Lisbon admits that “it’s not possible yet to know the causes of what happened”, although “various witnesses were heard and identified”.

The PSP states that, after having received a call reporting a disorder in the Bairro Alto, it mobilized officers who found at Rosa Street two men involved in a physical confrontation, one of whom, 26 years old, had a knife covered with blood that was taken away by the police officers. Both men were injured.

Further down, at the Água da Flor Plazza, the officers saw a 19 years old man lying in the pavement, with severe injuries caused by a white weapon in the chest and shoulder, but still alive. He was medically assisted at the scene, but eventually died.

The 26-year-old man, who is suspect of having murdered the young man, was detained by the PSP and driven to the hospital to be treated, because he “was injured in the right arm”, says the same police source. The other individual, aged 20, who was struggling with the presumed murderer, also sustained injuries and was assisted at the scene.

After exiting the hospital, the 26-year-old suspect was presented to a court yesterday and detained under preventive arrest.

Concerning the investigation of the case, the Public Ministry will determine if the investigation will stay in the hands of the PSP, or if it will be done by the Judiciary Police (PJ), which meanwhile has been informed about this case of homicide.

Afonso has also translated some of the comments that appear on that page with the article. He says, “I think they speak for themselves.”

Nuno Vaz

09 Ago 2009, às 08:33 — Portugal — Lisboa

Is this PORTUGAL? NO… This is EUROPE at its best. The contractors import CHEAP WORK, and now we have to suck it up and take the sons of those “poor slaves” who do not want to work because they know how to read, and think Portugal should give them good jobs, so that they won’t work in the construction sector for the salary of an immigrant.

cevaso44

09 Ago 2009, às 10:28 — Portugal — Lisboa

And still our government is considering abolishing the need for passports for the Portuguese-speaking African countries! Are we still blind to the fact that the percentage of delinquency of those immigrants is sky-high. They come to our country, and the ones who don’t succeed turn to criminality. If you want you can even call me xenophobic, racist but the facts are there for whoever wants to SEE THEM (cont.)

cevaso44

09 Ago 2009, às 10:34 — Portugal — Lisboa

(cont.) Now, no one “more politically correct” can give life to this Portuguese kid who was just enjoying a night out “on his own turf” with three female friends. And now we’re still waiting for the next usual and sad “scene”: the judge orders these murderers to walk away free, or at best, he will give them a sentence (pena) that will have literally the weight of a feather (pena)…

securitylx

09 Ago 2009, às 11:23 — Portugal — Lisboa

Automatic expulsion to their country of origin, but not without them having to work beforehand in order to pay as a debt to the parents and family! This only happens because the marginals know that we have laws that stink!

ahcalmeida

09 Ago 2009, às 13:31 — Portugal — Lisboa

Police nearby in critical areas, better policing of the residences of foreigners and even a policy of expulsion until the second generation for criminal foreigners or their descendents will be some of the solutions. The minorities act cowardly when in groups and when that happens they constitute a public threat.

mauricio2

09 Ago 2009, às 14:32 — Portugal

Had it been the opposite, that is, a group of Portuguese men running(!) to KILL WITH KNIFES a 19-year-old African young man accompanied by 3 girls, and the world would have by now fallen apart. Whether by our “authorities”(?) or by our “media”, and especially by the Leftist Block and its SOS “racists”. This country is at the END. Actually, for a country that has no present, THERE’S NO FUTURE FOR ITS PAST.

Miguel Soares

09 Ago 2009, às 19:30 — Germany

Bad journalism. Pure speculation. At this point no one knows the motives for the crime or the nationality of those involved, and all already have the sentence in their heads. The detainees are really Africans mr. journalist? Or are they Portuguese citizens with dark skin? All this hurry, the prejudice of those who already know it all, despite knowing nothing… a misery.

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