Buenos Aires Herald 
The Buenos Aires Provincial Police is searching male bus passengers across the province after bus driver Daniel Barrientos, 65, was murdered on Monday at dawn while working.
Armed officers from the Police’s Immediate Operations Tactical Unit (UTOI), clad in bullet-proof vests and camouflage uniforms, are stopping the vehicles, making the male passengers get off and stand with their hands on the side of the bus. They then frisk them, demand ID, and search their backpacks, news footage and videos taken by neighbors show.
Barrientos, a 620 line driver, was shot dead while driving his bus in the neighborhood of Vernazza in Virrey del Pino, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires City. So far, four people have been arrested in the ongoing investigation into his murder.
Barrientos’ assassination sparked rage among colleagues, who went out onto the streets to protest insecurity. As the Province’s Security Minister Sergio Berni approached the protest in the neighborhood of Lomas del Mirador, some demonstrators attacked him and fractured his skull and cheekbone.
The new operations, which aim to address the demand for more security, sparked controversy.
During one of the operations, a bus driver told C5N news channel that the place where the operations were being carried out was not appropriate. “Nothing happens here, you have to go into the neighborhoods,” he said.
Victoria Donda, the Province’s Political Strategy Monitoring Secretary, denied accusations that the operations were “a circus.” “I think we are in an emergency situation that we have to address,” she said during an interview on Radio Continental. “All of our political space is very worried due to the situation.”
Néstor Pitrola, left-wing pre-candidate to governor of the province, said in a tweet that the new operations are an excuse to “intimidate the population” and “militarize” the province. “This is not a solution to insecurity,” he wrote. Pitrola also criticized the violent operations in which police detained two bus drivers accused of hitting Berni, which he called “brutal.”
Alejandro Finocchiario, a leader of the right-wing party PRO in La Matanza, said that the operations were “staged for television” and that they would not solve “the terrible problem of insecurity in Buenos Aires’ suburbs”.
“Authorities have to articulate national and provincial forces inside the neighborhoods’ hot areas,” he wrote.
