Mikaela is a law student at the Universidad de Lima, and a JURIST correspondent covering legal developments and social issues in Perú.
Nowadays, Perú faces uneasy parallels to the internal instability seen in the 1980s. While the ideological conflict of the past has been replaced by the cold logic of organized crime, the social atmosphere of dread caused by extortion and urban violence is strikingly similar.
On March 23, a forensic report provided by Perú21, a leading Peruvian daily newspaper, confirmed that Junior Wilfredo Huamaní Tapia was responsible for the March 17 triple homicide in San Juan de Miraflores. According to the reports published by Radio Programas del Perú (RPP), a leading Peruvian news outlet, the driver of a public transport line vehicle—called “Los Rojitos”—was shot to death, along with two passengers, apparently in retaliation for the business allegedly not paying the “fee” extortionists demanded in the San Juan de Miraflores district.
The crime was perpetuated by a man, dressed in a black hoodie and a gray jogger, who approached the vehicle walking toward the driver’s side. After the attack, the suspect fled, running down the street to get on a motorcycle where an accomplice was waiting for him. Later on, officers from the Peruvian National Police (PNP) and agents from the Criminal Investigation Department (Depincri) traveled to the crime scene to guard the vehicle and begin the preliminary procedures and the collection of evidence.
On March 20, the General Commander of the PNP, Óscar Arriola, reported that the main suspect in the triple homicide was apprehended inside a property in the same district. Arriola claimed that Huamaní had a “high probability” of being responsible for the crime as he apparently matched all the physical characteristics shown by the surveillance cameras. Arriola also stated that Huamaní was under surveillance for about ten hours and had undergone forensic tests, adding that Huamaní was linked to two other hitman groups, and that two shotguns were found at the time of his apprehension.
The response of the country’s media was immediate, and herein comes the debate. Several questions are at play here. First, while not defending or denying the participation of the accused in the crime, media voices accuse the PNP of prioritizing a quick victory over conducting a legitimate prosecution. They acted as judges, and are creating a culpability narrative.
Second, there is the analysis issue. While the media pressure surrounding this triple homicide made Huamaní’s release unlikely, the same detention pattern could create a legal loophole in any other case that doesn’t face the same level of public scrutiny. By parading the suspect before cameras and linking him to the crime based on “family profiles” and “physical similarities,” and then declaring that he was likely responsible, the PNP violated the presumption of innocence as a fundamental principle, disobeying the Constitutional Court (Case No. 02825-2017-PHC/TC) and its own internal directives. This malpractice is not the fault of inefficient judges or prosecutors, but a direct failing of the police institution. By prioritizing the display of punishment to appease a desperate population, the PNP handed the defense the necessary arguments for procedural nullity so that, tomorrow, a confessed criminal can walk free due to a procedural flaw that could have been avoided with constitutional rigor.
Here, it is common to see police arrests end in release within 48 hours when the Prosecutor’s Office or the Judiciary does not find a sufficient legal basis. However, in this case, the risk of impunity would not come from an external judicial error, but from a procedural self-inflicted injury.
While it’s understandable that the concern and means to arrest people are intended to preserve the state of law, true security cannot be built on the ruins of due process. If the State becomes a “lawbreaker” to catch a criminal, the criminal has already won by dismantling the very system that was supposed to judge them impartially. We cannot bypass the law just to get “results” in a country where the rule of law feels like a luxury we cannot afford to lose.
