Juan Carlos Cruz, 52, was unloading his car Thursday afternoon in Morón, Buenos Aires province, when three men who were walking by suddenly approached him to steal his vehicle. Cruz was shot at least once in the head and died at the scene, while his attackers fled in his car. They have not yet been detained, and the police are currently searching for them.

The robbery occurred around 5 p.m. Thursday, the third violent death in the days leading up to the primary elections in Argentina, after an 11-year-old girl died in front of her school in Lanús on Wednesday after being attacked by burglars, and an activist died near the Obelisk in Buenos Aires city on Thursday afternoon after police detained him and held him to the ground. 

Cruz, who was Chief of Medical Emergencies at Carrillo Hospital in Ciudadela, Buenos Aires province, was apparently unloading an AC unit from his car in front of his mother’s house when the three men approached him to steal the vehicle. It is still unclear if Cruz offered any resistance.   

According to police and judiciary sources cited by Télam news agency, neighbors called 911 shortly after the crime. The police and an ambulance of the Emergency Medical Attention System (SAME, for its Spanish initials) arrived and certified that Cruz was already dead. The preliminary investigation launched at that point found the stolen car abandoned in Rafael Castillo, another BA province district some 40-blocks away from where the crime took place. 

Prosecutor Matías Rappazzo, of Inquiry Functional Unit 7 (UFI, for its Spanish initials) from the Morón Judiciary Department, ordered an autopsy to determine how many times Cruz had been shot and the gathering of security camera footage of the area. One camera on the corner of the house managed to record the crime, although at a distance that does not allow to make out any faces. 

Cameras from the Morón Monitoring and Operations Center (COM, for its Spanish initials) also filmed the three suspects walking through the Museo Aeronaútico square, just 7 blocks from the crime scene, minutes before it all took place. They also registered the suspects escape after the crime, but lost track of them before they abandoned the vehicle some 5 km from Cruz’s mother’s home.

– with information from Télam