Buenos Aires Herald 
An independent report by the Mapa de la Policía organization allegedly identified the riot police agent who shot reporter Pablo Grillo in the head with a tear gas can last Wednesday during a protest near Congress in Buenos Aires.
Grillo, a freelance photographer who was covering a pensioners’ demonstration against Javier Milei’s austerity plan, suffered severe head trauma and remains in critical condition.
According to Mapa de la Policía’s video, investigators used footage from several sources and were able to track the straight trajectory of the projectile that hit Grillo back to a riot police squad.
“We’ve managed to identify the person who made the shot that seriously injured photojournalist Pablo Grillo. Our science experts were able to determine the exact position where the shot came from,” said the organization on a video posted on X.
By synchronizing and observing several videos — including drone footage from news networks TN and A24 — the shooter was identified by name and rank as a police corporal, thanks to a high quality picture of his uniform name tag.
Security minister Patricia Bullrich expressed solidarity to Grillo’s family in a press conference on Monday, but flat out denied the accusations.
“Their analysis is not rigorous,” she said about Mapa de la Policia’s report. “The shot was not straight to the head. That is not true,” she claimed, and added that riot police always fired tear gas cartridges obliquely upwards, according to protocol.
According to Bullrich, the shot that hit Grillo ricocheted at least one time and impacted a metal structure. “We don’t have the item that hit him in the head, we don’t know if it was a tear gas can or a piece of metal,” she added.
Rodolfo Guillermo Pregliasco, a scientist who has provided expert testimony in more than 60 trials and collaborated with the Mapa de la Policía report, dismissed the ricochet theory in an interview on Sunday. “There is no doubt that the shot came from uniformed police and it was on a downward trajectory,” he told newspaper Página/12.
“It wasn’t a ricochet. That is completely clear. Anyone watching this video can see that,” he added.
Critical but stable
Earlier on Monday outside the Ramos Mejía Hospital where Grillo remains in intensive care, his brother Emiliano told reporters his brother was stable. “Considering that he is in critical condition, this is a positive thing,” he added.
Shortly after, Grillo’s father Fabian said in a TV interview that he had made an effort to avoid the videos of his son being shot in the head, but eventually came across them.
“It’s more than evident, they show the lie. And the madness. The way they attempted to disguise it and now the evidence has proven the opposite,” he said.
“I don’t even know how to describe these people,” he commented about Bullrich and Chief of Staff Guillermo Francos, who had also defended police actions in a morning interview.
“This is beyond the politics of ideology. It’s about humanity. And they have shown they lack that. It’s not just immoral, I believe there is even a pathological element here,” said Grillo.
“There is something seriously wrong with these people.”