Disturbing video footage shows the moment a retired police officer shot dead a neighbor over loud music on Christmas Day in Argentina.
Rafael Moreno, 74, is seen approaching one of the attendees of a house party in Buenos Aires around 6 a.m. Wednesday and pulling out a .38 caliber revolver before the victim, Sergio Díaz, 40, intervened.
Moreno started to step away when Díaz suddenly punched him in the face and shouted at him.
‘Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to point a gun at me?’ shouted an angry Díaz.
Moreno replied that he was “a cop” before Díaz pushed him.
The retired federal officer then placed the gun against Díaz’s stomach before stepping forward and firing one shot.
Díaz screamed in pain and bent over before walking to the sidewalk and falling.
Moreno remained in the background as someone shouted for an ambulance and the police to be called.
Rafael Moreno, 74, can be seen approaching one of the attendees of a house party in Buenos Aires around 6 a.m. Wednesday and pulling out a .38 caliber revolver before the victim, Sergio Díaz, 40, intervened.
Retired police officer Rafael Moreno was arrested Wednesday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after shooting dead a neighbor
Díaz was rushed to an area hospital, where he died several hours later from the gunshot wound.
Moreno was arrested at the scene and questioned by investigators later in the day.
Díaz’s relative and owner of the house, Karina, told Argentine television news channel TN that Moreno told them to “turn down the music because this will end badly.”
She said they kept their distance from Moreno, who reportedly did not get along with some of his neighbors.
“The least we thought was that he would react like that,” Karina said.
“He said two words and he shot, he (Díaz) didn’t have time to do anything.”
Moreno’s wife, Liliana, told TN that one of the men at the scene was carrying a gun.
“He told me, ‘I had to shoot because someone had a gun and pointed it at me,’” Liliana said.
Sergio Díaz (pictured) lost his cool when he noticed that retired police officer Rafael Moreno had pointed a gun at him and his friend moments before he was shot. The 40-year-old was rushed to a local medical facility, where he died
Buenos Aires police have seized the .38 caliber revolver used by retired officer Rafael Moreno to shoot a neighbor after he asked him and his friends and family to turn down the music
Retired police officer Rafael Moreno (left) was seen on a surveillance camera around 6 a.m. Wednesday walking toward a group listening to loud music in front of a home in Buenos Aires
“He probably shot because he had no choice,” she added.
Liliana said her husband never approached the group to turn down the music.
Instead, she claimed that Moreno merely wanted to prevent Díaz and members of his party from breaking down the gate of a nearby store.
“He crossed to get them out and stop them breaking the front fence because they were grabbing it to break it,” she said.
“The boys were trying to break it up, I couldn’t hear any music,” she added.
‘He went and had a nice chat with them. Then one of them came out with the gun and pretended to be crazy, but Rafael had his gun too.”
Moreno is charged with aggravated murder with the use of a firearm.