One night after feeding the horses, my friend Carlos told me there had been an accident downtown. On his motorcycle we drove to the scene to see what had happened.

“I want to make sure it is not one of my friends,” he told me.

When I heard accident, I expected to see a car accident. Oh boy was I ever wrong.

Behind yellow police tape stood about 20 people starring at the dark street. A chicken and a rooster walked around the empty road as a police officer took photos. As I took a better look I saw what everyone was starring at. Under a streetlight lay a man dead with blood draining from his body.

I was shocked. I have never seen a dead body like this in my life. Yet, for those around me, it was as if they were looking at a soccer game. It was such a weird scene.

“Apparently he had stolen that chicken and that rooster,” Carlos told me when I asked why the man had been shot to death.

This was just one of 4 killings that happened that night in the small town of La Libertad. According to Carlos, all men killed were robbers.

When I told him this was the first time I had seen someone who was killed, he was very surprised. I asked him how many times had seen something like this in his life.

“Around 7 times,” he told me.

“But don’t worry, if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. These men were robbers, that is why they are dead,” he reassured me as we drove home in the darkness of the night.