By land, by water and by air. Security forces and agencies are working overtime to find the suspect who this Sunday stabbed 11-year-old boy to death while playing football with his friends in a sports center in Mocejón (Toledo, 5,000 inhabitants). “We hope that the murderer will be found and that the full weight of the law will fall on him,” said the government delegate in Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolón. “Let those who know how to work work,” he asked, after explaining that the Civil Guard had taken over the investigation, but that it had the support of the National Police, which is also monitoring from the air, and that the underwater unit of the Armed Institute is also scanning the area.
The event occurred this Sunday at ten in the morning, when the victim, a boy named Mateo, was playing with two other minors at the Ángel Tardío sports center, located on a hill on the outskirts of the city, next to a residential area. chalets. At that moment, a young man, his face covered, entered the facilities, walked towards the group of minors and attacked the child, although the motive for the attack has not yet been determined. “He was playing with his best friend and another boy when the murderer gained access to the facilities. It seems that he slipped through a hole in the fence at the back. The two friends managed to escape, not Mateo,” explained Sunday Asell Sánchez-Vicente, 39, cousin of the mother of the deceased minor and spokesperson for the family.
After the stabbing, the attacker fled. Initially, it appeared that he had left in a vehicle, but sources consulted ruled out this hypothesis. The weapon used in the attack that killed the child has not been found, according to other sources.
The sports center where the events took place is one of the key points of the investigation. A large device, to which reinforcements from the Civil Guard arrive, organizes the investigations from there. A group of about seven agents meets at noon in an open field. The enclosure has up to four openings in the fence. Two at the back, where there is a picnic and gym area, and the others in two corners. It borders an area of industrial warehouses, artisan buildings with rubble and a large scrubland that leads to the exit of the municipality. The land is surrounded by an artificial canal for irrigating crops, which the Civil Guard was monitoring yesterday. The agents' footprints are visible among the mud that has become encrusted in the bottom after they decided to close the canal to reduce the water level.
As soon as the event became known, the Civil Guard deployed what is known as Operation Cage, which includes checks on highways and roads in a perimeter around the scene of the event. The Justice for the Civil Guard (JUCIL) association has called for a reflection on the security model in rural areas, such as the one where Mateo's death occurred, in order to expand the number of troops and the deployment area. “Although two patrols were activated, one from Seseña, 39 kilometers away, and the other from a neighboring town, with the support of Seprona d'Illescas, located almost 30 minutes away, the response time was 40 minutes. This interval allowed the murderer to escape and, to this day, he has not been captured,” the group laments in a statement. “These response times are unacceptable,” said Javier Montero, spokesman for the association.
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The investigation is being conducted by the Judicial Police Unit of the Armed Institute and the Information Group of the Toledo Command. The agents have begun to collect witness statements and have confiscated the mobile phones of the three minors who were at the scene of the attack. The Instruction Court number 3 of Toledo, in charge of the case, has decreed the secrecy of the procedure.
The victim is a well-known boy in this small town. His family runs a bakery. About 300 people gathered Sunday afternoon at the City Hall to honor the murdered minor in an event full of sadness and desolation. “No one can understand this event,” said the family's spokesman. “We want to express our firm condemnation and absolute rejection of the murder of Mateo, a good and loving boy who someone decided to take his life at just 11 years old while he was playing soccer with his friends. Rest in peace, dear Mateo, you will always be in our memory.” The Mocejón City Hall has declared three days of official mourning. “We are dismayed, we want to express our support above all for the family and friends of the little boy,” said the mayor, Conchi Cedillo.