Dear readers, meet Sherina Latorraca. In 2003 she hit a mother and 3 year old son with her BMW. The child died, the mother is paralyzed. Sherina fled the scene, hoping she wouldn't be found and held responsible. Her mother, Zaira Santamaría de Latorraca, at the time a municipal judge, twisted and spun events to get her daughter off the hook. That worked."Duh", you say. This is, after all, classic behavior among Panama's privileged class (anyone remember Nicole Chevalier?). But the story doesn't end here.
Sherina-the-killer-bitch soon found herself rewarded for her upstanding behavior with a job at the Defensoria del Pueblo (Ombudsman) at the - get this - Human Rights department. That's how these things work in Panama.
And then, our visionary president Ricardo Martinelli got this great idea to make her mother, the former municipal judge, a deputy magistrate in the Supreme Court. Actually the idea came from our Tourism Minister, Shlomo Salmon, and then Mentirelli embraced it. Now that was one step too far even for our legislators who are otherwise not bothered by such trivialities like "ethics" or "decency", and they refused to approve her appointment - but only after a storm of protest had raged through civil society and the media.
Virtually every newspaper and current events blog in the country has published about the affair. So you'd think that any killer-bitch with half a brain would be glad it was over. But not Sherina! She has picked a bunch of websites and filed criminal defamation complaints against them because they called her what she is: an assassin. So the people of small independent websites like cocoas.net, elcuara.com, bebeestereo.com and garage507.com have been selected by Sherina to face criminal charges. Obviously she is too much of a coward to file criminal complaints against big media organizations like La Estrella and La Prensa.
And so the abysmal practice of our Public Ministry to leave the real criminals alone and go after those who call them out instead continues unabated under Martinelli and his second-in-command Bonissi - and from within the office of the Defensoria which has historically always frowned upon the use of criminal defamation laws. Only in Panama!
You truly disgust me (even though I don’t really care about Sherina). Instead of going with the usual panamanian hobby of bullshitting events like this out of proportion, you should be clear about the actual circumstances. Although fleeing the scene of the accident was in no way the correct behavior, you have to understand that a teenager involved in a situation like this is almost always going to run back to his/her parents on instinct. Stupid? Yeah. Understandable? You bet. And another important point is that the woman crossing the street decided to do so with a small child in her arms (impacting her mobility), taking the risk of provoking a traffic accident when she had the option of walking to the bridge that crosses over the high traffic street (which was less than a 5 minute walk).
I have been driving in this country for 15 years, and I don’t have enough fingers to count the times that I’ve been close to a situation like this. As a matter of fact, my first traffic accident occurred when a woman decided she was going to cross the street, and although she did so on the proper pedestrian crossing, she did so while there was heavy traffic on a green light. The woman threw herself in front of my car, which made me end up swerving to avoid hitting her and making the car behind me hit me. I’ve been in that situation many times (although having driven a car for so long, you get good at avoiding obstacles). The reason I tell you this is because according to people I know that actually witnessed the event, and according to Sherina, the lady imprudently threw her body into the street with little concern as to her surroundings. Pedestrians don’t automagically have the right to make every car stop to a halt whenever they decide to cross the street (and this goes for the ones that believe they can “outrun” the cars when crossing), as this would cause endless accidents and more mortality. Pedestrians in this country have little, if any, respect for transit and drivers; according to people that saw the event happen, this was exactly what happened: an imprudent woman took an unnecessary risk, while not paying the required attention to incoming traffic.
On the topic of the lawsuits: I think that although they’re probably a little over the top, BUT it is true that the media presented articles calling her a murderer, which is defamation of character and sensationalistic journalism. It might be a good thin to get these websites under control (since they generally post whatever they want or believe will cause more hits). In the end you disgust me because you believe that calling a person who does not deserve it a “Killer Bitch” is a justifiable method to attract hits to your website. Whatever opinion you might have is completely valid, but insults, defamation, and sensationalism only show how unprofessional you are.
I love it when you guys start blaming the victim. Of course having a 17 year old drive a BMW is not taking an imprudent risk, right? The driver could of course have been careful enough as to not to run over a woman in the street – which is after all, as you point out, not uncommon here. But no, you spin it as if it’s the victim’s fault. Talk about disgusting.
Oh by the way, Nicole Chevalier was actually detained, she was actually brought to the police station to take her declaration and was in holding until actual witnesses where interviewed and the police concluded it was not the girls fault. The man crossing the street did so in a position of low visibility for car drivers and didn’t cross on a pedestrian crossing. It’s sad that whenever something happens, someone always comes out with a bullshit email about how a close person suffered greatly at the hands of the “upper class”…
Yeah, I remember how someone present at the police station at the time told me how Miss Chevalier was so upset because she couldn’t charge her phone anywhere.
great headline, great tags, great story, great to have Bananama Republic back on the internets!!!
I agree Jaime!! A 17 y.o. yeye rabiblanca runs over a chola and her kid in her BMW cause the chola just “imprudently threw her body into the street with little concern as to her surroundings” as cholas are wont to do. We need to do something to stop this epidemic of cholas and their illegitimate babies damaging fine vehicles. It is causing massive bodywork and repair bills to countless BMW’s and Mercedes countrywide.
I love when stupid people like Jaime start giving all kind of excuses to make acceptable the situation of a woman crossing the street being hit by a girl.
The woman crossed the street on a safety line and 2. she was driving on the shoulder.
@Admin
1) If you’ve ever been detained (for whatever reason, criminal or not) you might appreciate the fact that they take their time to give you a chance to make a phone call, sometimes even taking hours before you being able to notify your loved ones. I would be pissed off, as would anyone else, if I had to stay for hours detained not being able to call anyone to tell them about my situation.
2) How is a 17 year old driving a BMW more imprudent than a 17 year old driving a Corolla? What does the car have to do with anything? If anything it’s a better choice because it offers better maneuverability and safety features than cheapo cars.
3) The driver could of course have been careful enough as to not to run over a woman in the street, the same way a pedestrian could have been careful enough as to not cross a high traffic street at the wrong moment.
The crimes on her part where to flee the scene of the accident and not assisting the victims of the accident. The coverup was perpetrated by her parents not her (take into account this is an underage girl under the ruling of her legal guardians). If you wrote an article about how her mom could still have a public governmental position after being involved in a cover-up I’d agree with you, but you wrote about the accident and resort to insults and polemic that are totally uncalled for.
@Joy RIder:
Ah, I love sarcasm. Despite the obvious racist resentment in you post, I feel compelled to answer your post. My grudge is not with Cholas, illegitimate children, or car repair bills. My grudge is against people that decide to make a girls life a living hell demonizing her, while at the same time praising the victim as if she had no fault in the whole thing.
@Mista
Stupid? So now you resort to insults as well. Amazing. Bring me an IQ test and lets compare results so that we can asses my stupidity. The woman was crossing on a safety line. What’s your point here? Pedestrians don’t automatically own the street if they cross on a safety line. Sherina was NOT driving in the shoulder, the was driving on the leftmost lane of the street.
I just want to leave this for you guys to read.
Artículo 103. Antes de cruzar la vía, todo peatón esperará el momento en que no exista tránsito
vehicular, que éste se halle detenido o que la distancia de los vehículos más próximos sea tal que
pueda realizar el cruce a paso normal, con prudencia y sin peligro operación que deberá efectuar
preferiblemente en las esquinas o intersecciones de las calles, vías o avenidas, utilizando
preferentemente las líneas de seguridad, los semáforos peatonales y los pasos elevados peatonales
si los hubiere.
If what you people are looking for is “justice”, I’m sorry but you’re very much mistaken. Justice was already served. Legally it was the pedestrians job and responsibility to cross the street safely. This one obviously didn’t. The only reason this was a big deal is that Panamanians love to complain about the yeyesitas, the BMW’s, and people with money; while they also love to take the side of the common man.
Let’s be frank here, can you honestly say Panama has safe drivers? I see drunk drivers in the US and Europe drive better than sober drivers here, not that I condone it(but at the very least they use turn signals). Not to mention trying to cross any street in this city is like playing a fucking game of Frogger. You practically have to wait and beg in order to cross unless your lucky and there’s a pedestrian bridge nearby.
Now, I haven’t studied the “Reglamento de Transito” but I’m pretty sure there are articles regarding speeding and reckless driving. I don’t know if such a law exists here but, in many metropolitan cities in the US such as New York, LA, and DC, there are laws which stipulate that drivers must yield to pedestrians already in crosswalks regardless of what a traffic light signals.
I’m not defending the “chola” in anyway, If she wasn’t looking or indeed just threw herself on the street, she got what was coming. I actualy remember when I was 10 yrs. old staying at Granada on vacation and I saw a cop ticket some pedestrians not using the crosswalk on Via Espana. I wish there was more of this and/or crossing guards hell even honest cops that take their jobs seriously.
I may be dreaming, but the fact of the matter is, until people (pedestrians and drivers alike) don’t start taking the “Reglamento” seriously, it might as well be toilet paper.
Let’s for a moment forget that logic dictates that pedestrians are most vulnerable in traffic and thus drivers should be careful with them, not the other way around.
Yet, first of all, the mother DID cross the street at a pedestrian crossing and in Panama cars have to stop. Instead, Sherina Latorraca never slowed down, hit mother and son, and dragged both of them with her for more than 40 meters. Second, Latorraca never came to the police, it took an anonymous phone call and 24 hours to find her in La Alameda. This Jaime guy is talking out of his ass.
Yet his discourse is typical for a class of people in Panama that doesn’t care about the law, or even human life. They will always blame the victims after they maim them or kill them and they always make sure they get away with it. So they kill people in traffic, throw their prostitutes out of hotel windows, and they don’t give a shit, nobody ever goes to jail and they just pretend nothing ever happened.
But I think it is just great that this murderous bitch sued these websites. It’s the best way to make sure her name is forever associated with what she did. She’ll be a repútational risk for anyone or anything she touches.
I will never forget during my fist month in Panama, about 5 years ago, I had the displeasure to do business with a yeye fula bitch rabilblanca cunt saleswoman (i won’t mention what business it was). She actually said to me that “in Panama people are very poor, if you run over someone in your car and kill them, it doesn’t matter, you just have to give their family a little bit of money”
not a word of a lie, that is exactly what she said to me word for word, I will never forget it as long as I live.
So fuck you Jaime, you are making excuses for people who we all know have this exact attitude. It is beyond disgusting that you would place the blame on a mother and child killed in a pedestrian corssing in a hit and run.
@Jay: That’s exactly how it is here, and there are many cases to prove it. That’s also why Jaime doesn’t know the law; he doesn’t have to know the law. The rabiblanco class is above the law. And it’s not just killing people, it’s in everything. Example. Years ago I went to the Super99 in Punta Pacifica. And one of these Club Union women was walking the aisle, pointing at what she wanted to buy. The indigenous maid, following her in uniform pushing the kart, had to get everything out of the racks and into the kart. And then that woman exploded because instead of two the maid took only one can of whatever it was. I was so disgusted that I left my own shopping cart where it was and left. And I’m never going back there either. But guess what? If you tell this story to members of the elite here, they don’t see anything wrong with that woman’s behavior. Exemplary for people who think that “having class” means driving an expensive car, flaunting wealth and other such vulgarities like bullying your employees.
Drivers are supposed to be on the lookout for possible obstacles or accident causing situations. But sometimes they can’t be avoided. Legally pedestrians have to be conscious about their actions in the street. It’s their responsibility to be on the lookout for incoming cars when crossing a street, which the woman in this case did not do. Once again, that she crossed in a pedestrian crossing makes no difference, she is still required by law to cross responsibly. Second she did not drag them for forty meters. She actually tried to avoid the collision, act for which she swerved into the “isleta” and came to a full stop. The victims hit the windshield and broke it when they went over the car (not under it and dragged). When did I say she came to the police? I specifically said that her crime was to flee the scene of the accident. You clearly did not read my post throughly. I’ve repeatedly condemned her actions not including the accident per se and her parents coverup, if your post was named “Zoila de Latorraca, Coverup Bitch”, I would be 100% on your side. But you call Sherina a bitch and a killer, which she is neither.
And my discourse if for a type of people that do not care about the law and human life? You are sadly mistaken. I do care about the law since I follow it dutifully, and I do care about human life, since I’m here debating the issue of people like you trying to fuck her life. Really it’s amazing how the moment someone from a wealthy family has a moment like this everyone in panama try to make the most out of it by making fun of them and trying to discredit them. If this happened to a taxi driver and he was found innocent, which he would have been since the law is clear in the matter, people would make a big deal out of it for a few days and forget. But the reason this case is such a crowd pleaser is because she was a 17 year old daughter of a family with money on a BMW. People love to root for David instead of Goliath, never thinking that maybe the big guy also has a right to win.
Jaime doesn’t know the law, like most drivers in this country. Cars HAVE TO STOP for pedestrians crossing on a pedestrian crossing. Nothing complicated about it. Of course you can’t stop when you’re driving too fast and you don’t give a shit anyway. Furthermore, the police found her car with the windshield intact, but without a license plate. The bitch and her mother were more concerned about covering their tracks than about the kid she just killed. Face it, dumbo, the bitch is a killer. That her mother got her off the hook doesn’t change that fact.
@Jaime
I just want to make clear that I’m not defending Sherina or la “chola”. But I completely disagree when you say that these kind of accidents sometimes can’t be avoided. The only way these can’t be avoided is if your not driving safely.
If it was a taxi driver, or any other person behind the wheel. I’d still be saying the exact same thing. The traffic regulations don’t discriminate and neither do I.
The fact of the matter is Sherina was speeding and the chola wasn’t paying attention. So they were both breaking traffic regulations.
Traffic accidents like this really don’t surprise me one bit when you see read the traffic statistics and other traffic accidents on TVN and RPC news. Until people don’t start taking traffic regulations seriously these things will continue to happen.
1. Stop calling the woman “La Chola” her name is Kathia Perez.
2. I agree with dumb Jaime. You should have named this article Sherina the Bitch and Zoila the Corrupt Coverup mother.
@Jaime
3. I’m still not getting your point here. This girl hit a mother and son crossing a safety line. She was so fast that she couldn’t react on time. She ran away making her crime twice as bad. And only because the anonymous call she was found making this 3-times as bad. What if no one reported her?
You all say that crossing the street here is like a frogger game. And you even say that she is guilty because she threw herself to the car. Damn. You are already judging Kathia and practically saying that she got what she deserved. Who has her son dead? Who is the victim? Who ran away from the scene? and Who had her mother covering everything up so Sherina “The Bitch” goes away fine with it?
If she made her way to a pedestrian crossing and then crossed the street she had all the intentions of making it safe to the other side of the road. It is kind of stupid to tell that she did all wrong that and now she is guilty of it. If she were the person you say she is then she might have crossed under a bridge, on a blind curve, on a intersection, everywhere else!
And, you MUST stop your car if there are people on the sides of a pedestrian crossing.
4. These people like Sherina, the barking bitch, all behave the same: They know they have influences, they have good incomes to buy powerful cars (the HP’s of a corolla are like 1/3 of a BMW), they all talk on the cellphone while driving (instead of using the handsfree). Now she is doing what she knows best: being a damn Bitch who killed a 3-4 year old BOY and now is alive, fine, with no injuries and earning a paycheck as a human rights defensor from the goverment.
Do you think Kathia got what she deserved? and who is responsible of giving her what she deserved? an under-age girl on a BMW at high speed and then fleeing from the scene? Justice seems to work one-way, down.
@Admin: I don’t know the law? I posted a few post back the law. Read it! The pedestrian should have been more careful. Drivers stop when pedestrians cross, the same way that pedestrians cross when there’s no incoming traffic. Could them both have been more careful? Yes. Does having had the accident make her a killer? No, because the pedestrian crossed when she shouldn’t have. How can Sherina be a killer if she had no intent of hitting the woman while driving? It was an accident plain and simple. And by the way the assumption you make about me being a rabiblanco is an obvious sign that this is not about the girl, but about her “social class”. I was born in a decent family and left my house at 18 to make a life for myself. I first lived in a room in San Miguelito right beside “El puente rojo” at first, then Veranillo calle L, and now I live in San Francisco. I studied while I worked to make a living and afford college and I came out just fine. I buy my own groceries, wear a swatch instead or a rolex, drive a Toyota, and have never been in the Club Union. Get of your high horse and don’t try to tell me what the law is when it’s posted right here on the comments. Oh, by the way, the car was found repainted, with a new windshield, a new fender, and fixed hood. No one got dragged forty meters and she actually came to a full stop before freaking out and driving away.
@Stevito I see your point, but driving safely is not enough in my opinion. Pedestrians also have to do their part. The laws of physics aren’t forgiving. If you are going 40 miles and hour on a 60 miles per hour limit and someone just decides to cross the street (in a pedestrian crossing) a second or two before you’ve reached the crossing line, it wont matter how good your reaction times are, or how safe you where driving for that matter, you’re still going to get a collision. A good friend of mine almost got killed in Costa del Este because a lady decided to outrun the car. He avoided the collision, flipped his car, and ended up in intensive care. The only way to avoid that situation was for the pedestrian to be conscious about her decision to cross the street. Off course, if he had died, we would find news on the likeness of “stupid rabiblanco dies because of speeding”. Oh and by the way, it’s not true that the girl was speeding. She actually had to break hard because a car in front of her braked suddenly, and she changed lanes to avoid a collision. Sadly, a collision with the car in front would have been preferable, but that wasn’t the case. In any case I agree with you wholeheartedly on the fact that if both Sherina had more experience driving, and if the pedestrian looked out for incoming traffic this could have been avoided. In any case, do you think it’s fair to call Sherina a “Killer Bitch”? It’s not like she decided to kill a person that day; the consequences notwithstanding, she didn’t mean to kill anyone the same way that Kathia didn’t mean to get run over that day.
@Mista I’ve already commented that I by no mean sanction her actions after the collision (not the I sanction the collision itself), and that I find reproachable the actions perpetrated by the mother. The fact that the lady was walking on a pedestrian crossing doesn’t change anything, she is still required to make sure there is no incoming traffic (specially since the visibility of pedestrians crossing is lots of time blocked by trucks or cars, or even taxi drivers picking up passengers). I agree that she did commit a crime that day, she flee the scene of the accident. I agree the mother committed a possibly even worse crime by trying to cover it all up. I’m in no way judging Kathia, far from it, I think its a shame really. I’m judging the people that say the girl is a Killer Bitch, the people that camped with pitchforks outside her home… If you ask me who are the victims, I would say all three of them are. The kid is dead, the lady got hit by a car which lead to physical problems, and the girl has had emotional trauma from the accident as well as her life becoming a living nightmare because people want “self serving justice” and “revenge”. I never said that Kathia is an imprudent person, I said she made an imprudent decision at that specific moment in time. Can I blame her for the action she took? No I can’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the decision that caused the accident. Another point is that you do not have to stop for people on the sides of a pedestrian crossing, they are supposed to wait for the moment where the traffic offers an opening where they can be seen crossing and allows them time to do so (which is the reason pedestrian crossing lights exist, though they wouldn’t have helped much in this case). As a matter of fact I was once chastised by a transit cop because I gave a man a chance to cross the street because I could have caused an accident by breaking in the middle of transit flow. Also powerful car or not, it takes me a few seconds to go to 100 km/h in a BMW, a Corona, or a Tucson. This accident could have happened regardless of the car. I don’t think Kathia got what she deserved, since the death of a son is a price many times the punishment for not looking throughly at the street you’re crossing. But I don’t think Sherina deserves all this people damning her to hell, calling her a killer bitch, and manifesting anger at the girl’s residence either, specially for nothing more than an accident. The morale of her having a Human Rights position in the government, or that her mother’s actions went unpunished is a subject that won’t get any debate from me since I would probably agree with most if not all of your opinions. But I can’t stay silent seeing thousands of people wanting to butcher Sherina mostly because she comes from money, and her mother made some bad choices.
Show me ONE thing that happened to her that made her life a “living nightmare”. A job at the Defensoria del Pueblo. All I can find is pictures of her modeling and partying. Meanwhile, the mother of the dead kid has a lifelong sentence of physical pain, hardly being able to move, not seeing any justice and on top of it all the loss of her kid. And what does the killer bitch do? Sue some websites. Because, for spoiled yeye bitches like her there are lawyers and they usually get their way in the court. As her case proved.