Start date September 17, 1999 | ||
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The Ramallo massacre occurred on September 17, 1999, in Villa Ramallo, in northern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, when three armed robbers broke into the local offices of the Banco de la Nación Argentina, taking six hostages. After several hours, they tried to escape in a car, using the bank manager and an accountant as human shields, and holding the manager's wife. A few meters ahead, a special group of the provincial police, the GEO, killed one of the suspects and the two hostages. Another suspect, Martín Saldaña, was found hanged in his cell just hours after the massacre; though it was assumed that he had committed suicide, in January 2007 new research showed that he had been murdered, possibly by first hitting him in the head, rendering him unconscious, and then strangling him.
Doubts about the police behaviour arose after the whole country saw the special unit of the police deliberately shooting the car with hostages inside.
After the massacre, several government officials blamed the media coverage for the tragic outcome, accusing journalists of an unprofessional treatment of the news. The provincial governor Eduardo Duhalde claimed that negotiations may have been negatively affected by the police constant communication with radio and television reporters.