A woman remains in a coma as she was shot by her partner 5 times while waiting collecting her 4 year old boy from school. The incident occurred on Wednesday just after 5pm outside del colegio Santo Negro de Elda.
The assailant then attempted to flee the scene in the woman’s car but he embedded it into a school fence, at which point he turned the gun on himself.
It was just after five in the afternoon as dozens of parents and mothers waited at the doors of the Santo Negro public school in Elda to pick up their children from class.
The woman had already collected her son and was putting him into her car, at which point her ex-partner approached her, opened the door and fired two shots without saying a word.
She managed to get out of the vehicle and run but he followed her down the street and shot her three more times, twice while she was lying on the ground.
According to a number of the mothers who watched the events unfold, the boy, who had witnessed the entire incident, also fled and ran into the school screaming and crying,
The aggressor then jumped into his car that was parked in front of the school and made to drive away but after about fifty meters, as he drove along the pavement to avoid traffic he crashed the car between trees and the school fence at which point he turned the gun on himself, shooting himself in the mouth.
The woman had previously denounced her ex-partner for mistreatment after suffering several episodes of violence. They were not married but, at the time, she moved from her home in Monforte del Cid to go and live with him in Elda. The pair lived together for during which time their son was born, although he had a 10-year old daughter from a previous relationship.
The woman is understood to be in a coma in the Elda Hospital ICU. She was identified as Jessica Bravo Cutillas, a 28-year-old Spaniard and a waitress by profession. The aggressor, who died from his gunshot wounds at the scene was 31 year old Imanol Castillo Sánchez.
The events have shocked Elda only three months after an eight-year-old boy was found dead in his foster father’s flat, after an assault on the house by two hooded men who also beat his mother. In addition, last September the owner of the Rabasa restaurant in Petrer was murdered and his restaurant robbed.
Two days after the event, on Thursday night, over 1500 people gathered in silent protest in the town after learning that Sánchez had several complaints of violence and was the subject of a restraining order against Jessyca.
The mayor, Rubén Alfaro, stood alongside the vice president of the Consell, Mónica Oltra ; the Minister of Education, Vicent Marzà; the Director General of the Valencian Institute of Women, María Such; the Regional Deputy Cristina Rodríguez and the mayors of Petrer, Irene Navarro and de Monforte del Cid, María Dolores Berenguer.
Students of the Valle de Elda Institute, a vocational training centre that is located a few metres from the Santo Negro School where the events took place, read a statement followed by another from the Sectoral Council of Equality for Women.
The mayor, Ruben Alfaro, said that this was a “sad, heartbreaking and unfortunate episode” while the vice president of the Consell, Monica Oltra, promised that “she will review all procedures on gender violence “because, in this case, the aggressor had a long history of complaints.
In Villena more than 70 people gathered in the Plaza de Santiago in protest. Councilor for Equality, Cate Hernández, called for action prevent this social scourge that this year, in Spain, has accounted for the deaths of 43 women.
There were further protests in Monforte del Cid , the victim’s hometown, where a hundred people gathered at the Town Hall Square, while in Pinoso protesters shouted “Enough of gender violence!”. As they took to the streets behind the mayor, Lázaro Azorín.
