A pregnant Argentine police officer and her unborn baby survived after her partner accidentally shot her inside their precinct station.
Marian Jofré, 29, was six months along and working administrative duty at the 34th Precinct in La Bebida, a city in western San Juan province, when the weapon discharged the morning of Sept. 14. Her partner, Cristian AlbarracÃn, was handling his service firearm when it somehow fired and struck Jofré in the back, according to the local prosecutor’s office.
Jofré, who has an 8-year-old daughter and three years on the force, was treated at the scene before being rushed to an area hospital in critical condition. She was later transferred to another facility, where surgeons removed the bullet during an operation on Sept. 17. She was discharged the following day, and local news reports indicated she was never at risk of losing her pregnancy. The gender of the baby and the delivery date remain unknown. Jofré is married to a fellow police officer.
The family learned details of the shooting through media coverage rather than official channels, according to Jofré’s cousin. Carla Barman told Telesol Diario that authorities failed to inform relatives for more than eight hours after the incident.
“The media were already saying she was stable, even though we knew nothing,” Barman said. “Some outlets even reported that he had passed away. Yet, as a family, no one came out to give us an answer.”
AlbarracÃn was taken in for questioning the day of the shooting and gave prosecutors an account of how the loaded weapon ended up in his hands. He said he and another officer had been chasing a crime suspect and had loaned his weapon to that colleague during the operation. He was not aware it was still loaded when the other officer returned it after arriving at the police station.
Investigators have treated the shooting as accidental from the outset. AlbarracÃn was released from custody on Sept. 17, the same day Jofré underwent surgery. He faces charges of negligent injury and failure to perform the duties of a public official.
A judge overseeing the case gave prosecutors eight months to complete their criminal investigation. The judge also imposed several conditions on AlbarracÃn: he must present himself monthly at a local precinct, seek judicial approval before traveling outside Argentina, and is barred from obstructing evidence collection or the investigation. His current status with the police department remains unclear.
The San Juan Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.