AP – An activist taking part in a protest days before national primary elections in Argentina died of a heart attack that he suffered while being detained by police yesterday, authorities said.
A video posted on the Instagram account of Susana Maresca, an independent photojournalist, shows Buenos Aires city police pinning the man face down on the pavement when Maresca starts yellingm “He’s purple! He’s purple! He’s going to suffer an attack.
He’s purple!”
The video shows officers then turning the unresponsive man over and performing CPR on him before he was taken to a hospital. He later died, the city government said in a statement.
“The causes of the death are related to a cardiac arrest resulting from risk factors,” the statement said. It described the man as being “between 40 and 45 years old” but did not name him because he did not have a document on him.
Human rights groups criticised the action by police as well as the response by officials.
The death came as Argentines were reeling from the killing of an 11-year-old girl on Wednesday during a snatch-and-grab robbery in a Buenos Aires suburb.
