Back at the Himalaya centre, one officer washed Sebastián's blood off his hands and others picked up spent rubber bullets from the floor. The SEMM ambulance arrived and asked to check on the two adolescents in the centre, one of whom had gone to bed before the girls began threatening their peers. The other had locked themselves in a room, along with a staff member who'd only been working at Himalaya for a week, for safety.
Care staff told openDemocracy that they then followed García's instructions to clean and tidy the place, throwing away the broken furniture and patching bullet holes in the walls. They said the psychologist Casales also told them to "put in order" what they would say at the police station that same night.
Casales declined to reply to specific questions about her work at Himalaya.
The aftermath
When the girls were returned to the Himalaya centre in the early hours of the morning, the centre's staff still did not know where Sebastián was. García, the former director, told openDemocracy that it took police more than 12 hours to tell her that they had taken him to a hospital. It was not until she finally learned of his whereabouts that she notified INAU of the police raid, according to an ongoing investigation by the state agency.
García denies this, saying: "INAU authorities were informed on the same evening [26 January], at the beginning of the incidents, and the next morning a Zoom meeting was held with them."
What followed was a blame game between the INAU and García from Himalaya, with each accusing the other of underplaying the seriousness of an incident in which a child in a care-home had been shot 31 times by a police team.
To make things worse, the Hospital de Clínicas's medical report, which openDemocracy has seen, says the police told doctors that Sebastián was injured as he resisted arrest while on drugs. No one at the hospital assessed whether his injuries were the result of a situation that should be reported or took any photos of the injuries to use as evidence. García resigned from her position at Himalaya in November 2023.
INAU's director of health services, Mónica Silva, told the investigation that the shots could have entailed "an enormous risk to [Sebastián's] health, as non-lethal ammunition in the thorax can cause death from cardiac arrest, and in the abdomen, it can cause liver or spleen injuries with significant bleeding, and in the face, it can cause loss of vision".
Yet when INAU reported the incident to the public prosecutor's office on 8 February 2023, prosecutor Pablo Rivas concluded "there is not enough evidence to identify responsible parties or to hold them criminally accountable" and asked the judge to dismiss the case.
"I knew there was a riot by the residents, that the young man admitted he was under drugs and a knife in his hand," Rivas told openDemocracy. "The INAU did not provide names, site cameras, internal administrative information, nothing. The INAU or the victim's family never requested an interview with the prosecution team."
Rivas did not respond to openDemocracy's questions about whether he had attempted to obtain any of this evidence – or gather any witness testimonies besides those collected by the police on the night of the incident. Both INAU and Rivas confirmed there have been no reports made about or investigations into the police's mistreatment of the two girls.
The Ministry of the Interior did not respond to openDemocracy's questions about whether the officers' conduct was investigated, and we were unable to access police records about the incident. Pablo Abdala, who chaired INAU at the time of the incident and is now vice-minister of interior, did not respond to a series of questions about what responsibility the agency and the police had in the incident.
On 30 August 2023, INAU's lawyers concluded in an early stage of the internal investigation that "the overall performance of the Himalaya project was inadequate". The actions taken were "negligent, not only in different aspects of handling this episode but also in assessing and informing INAU's competent authorities about its consequences", they added.
INAU's lawyers said the police should never have been involved, according to the official report. "The situation didn't entail more risk than a simple reduction and psychiatric medical care," it said. "Instead, it resulted in a gross assault, damaging to human rights."
In sum, the situation at the Himalaya centre was not a violent hostage crisis that required a squad of policemen armed with rubber pellets, but rather was a case of terrified adolescents who needed medical attention and the care of well-trained, empathetic staff.
'Absolutely marginal cases'
Classified INAU reports obtained and reviewed by openDemocracy reveal at least four other incidents of police misconduct against children and adolescents under state protection in 2023 alone.
In the Artigas department in northern Uruguay, a police officer assaulted a 17-year-old boy who had recently undergone heart surgery. The attack "caused such an emotional impact that he now fears to go out in public", said one INAU document.
openDemocracy has seen firsthand that there is a constant police presence outside the entrances of the short-stay centres in Montevideo, where adolescents are taken by INAU when they first enter the care system. INAU records show that several complaints have been made by carers or other witnesses about these officers beating children with batons.
In a Montevideo home for teenage mothers and their children, a police officer physically and verbally assaulted one of the mothers and staff members who tried to stop him.
In Maldonado, in eastern Uruguay, the police took three children aged 11, 12 and 13 away in handcuffs without adult supervision after they reported an educator for sexual abuse.
Abdala, who presided over INAU until the end of October 2023, told openDemocracy that "these are absolutely marginal cases". He added: "I would deny any version that there is abuse or repression, quite the contrary."
Chaos at Himalaya
Cervini Flores of the Ave Fénix Foundation acknowledged reports of previous poor conditions at the Himalaya centre. He said these were due to an INAU "system error" last year, which meant the centre was paid for the number of adolescents it assisted – as its contract seen by openDemocracy says it should be – rather than according to its total capacity.
"For about three or four months we received less money. It's not the same to be paid for 25 places… as to be paid for five or ten… and maintain the same resources, structure and continue improving the facilities," he told openDemocracy. "Today, everything is fine."
openDemocracy is unable to verify this as INAU does not allow press to enter these centres.
Himalaya staff members openDemocracy spoke with said that despite Cervini Flores' claims, the issues at the centre are ongoing. Rather than being a place of therapy, they said, Himalaya is a place of neglect.
"Adolescents [at the centre] don't have psychotherapy. There are psychologists, but all they do is guide them," one person told us. Pages from the centre's logbook have gone missing several times, with staff beginning to number pages after a psychologist tore a page out at the request of a girl who didn't want her self-harm recorded.
Sources also told openDemocracy that towards the end of last year, a girl at Himalaya told carers that she had been sexually abused by a staff member, who is also an INAU employee. The girl didn't realise she was a victim and the centre's management convinced her that she had made the whole thing up due to her mental health issues.
She subsequently wrote two letters – which openDemocracy has read – to staff apologising for the matter. Months later, a second girl at the centre complained of sexual assault by the same member of staff. Again, she did not realise she was a victim. The accused worker was reportedly transferred to another clinic managed by Gedanke without any investigation.
"They didn't want to fire him, because María del Carmen specifically stated she didn't want to pay dismissals," said a staff member. Neither the Cervini Flores family nor Gedanke responded to openDemocracy's questions on these allegations.
Other minors at Himalaya have allegedly been sexually exploited during unauthorised absences from the centre. On one occasion last year, Himalaya's newest arrival, who was 14 years old, asked staff if she could call her mother. Concerned, they asked what was wrong and she admitted she'd been at a trap house – a place for selling illegal drugs – and had been accused of stealing. "She hadn't done it, but she was scared because they were threatening to kill her," the source said. "That's when we found the place."
It transpired that four girls at Himalaya, all aged 16 or younger, had been frequenting the trap house, and had allegedly been sexually exploited there. One of the four alleged victims was one of the girls arrested the night Sebastián was attacked by the police, another was the second girl to report alleged sexual abuse by a member of Himalaya's staff.
One worker told openDemocracy that the girls had previously had relatively positive experiences in the care system but struggled with the lack of routine at the Himalaya centre. There are no set schedules or classes; kids wander idly while staff improvise workshops in areas such as make-up, cooking and cleaning.
"They all ended up dropping out of school, then escaping and going out to use drugs," they said. Sometimes, girls are missing for weeks, they added, then "every so often, they'd return to the home to bathe, eat something, and then run away again".
García reported the girls' visit to the trap house and the alleged sexual exploitation that took place there to INAU in September 2023, shortly before she resigned as Himalaya's director.
"Those who occupy the property [the trap house] and are in charge of the sale of substances have been involved daily with underage youths, offering such substances in exchange for sexual acts, among other things," her report said.
Two other sources familiar with the case said the alleged sexual exploitation was also reported to the police but never investigated. One of them said: "[Himalaya staff] went to Precinct 2 to file the report, asking them to get the girls out of there, and [officers] said they couldn't get involved. They were told there were minors there, and they replied they couldn't do anything."
The Ministry of Interior didn't answer openDemocracy's questions about this.
The future of the Himalaya centre is uncertain. The INAU board is awaiting the outcomes of "several technical and legal reports" relating to a litany of complaints before making any decisions, according to INAU's general director, Dinorah Gallo. People familiar with the situation confirmed to openDemocracy that the board has not yet decided how to respond to the complaints.
Eight carers resigned between April and May 2024, which sources told openDemocracy was at least in part due to them being upset with the centre's management. Cervini Flores claimed this is "natural in almost any business", telling openDemocracy.
"On the field, you see who you want on the team and who you don't," said Cervini Flores. He also complained that boys and girls referred by INAU had "profiles" – such as drug addiction or being violent – that didn't "match those agreed upon in the contract, making it very complicated to assemble a team" of experienced staff.
Sources told openDemocracy that the Cervini Flores family and Gedanke are detached from the centre's realities. "I never met Cervini Flores. I met María del Carmen, who occasionally visited the centre, but she lived in a bubble and had no idea what we were going through," said one of the workers. "She once arrived with clothes for five-year-olds, when the centre is for adolescents!"
Another employee added that "the Cervini Flores never cared about what was going on here", while a third said: "They only care about profiting from the children. God forgive them."
For now, both girls who were arrested with Sebastián are still underage and remain in INAU's care system. Nineteen-year-old Sebastián, meanwhile, became homeless after leaving Los Robles. He has since found a place to stay, but during his time living on the streets and in shelters, he crossed paths with other boys who had also been placed in Himalaya or another INAU care home or outsourced psychiatric clinics. All were burdened by pain and adrift.
"We were children, and we still are children. Even if you don't believe it, you know?" he says. "No matter what we've done, for me, it shouldn't have been this way."
*Some names have been changed for security reasons
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