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I'm sitting in the back seat of a patrol car of the Policía Nacional Civil (PNC) that's flying down the Pan-American Highway, passing through the town of Colón, La Libertad. In the front seats are the inspector Perón and his sub-inspector Mata (fake names), that a few minutes ago were exchanging words and laughter while relaying their juiciest police stories from their repertoire. Now they are holding fixed looks on the highway, while in the cabin there remains a silence that can only be broken by the sound of the siren. Something has happened. That is obvious. But after 15 days shadowing the police officers on foot in one of the most violent towns in El Salvador, it's not difficult to deduce that it's not just any "something". Here the radios burn every night with reminders of fights, assaults, shootings and appearances of corpses. When that happens, the police officers comment, discuss, motivate, ask questions. This silence is something more.
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