13. Finally, they pointed out that the right to equal protection before the law had been violated because that day, April 5, 1996, of all the people out on the street, the police decided to detain three citizens "who, strangely enough, were black and foreign." For that reason, the petitioners assert that the reasons for the detention of José Delfín Acosta were racist, not legal. B. STATE 14. The State reported that, according to the police, the operation had been carried out in response to a complaint of an armed, drunk person disturbing the peace. It asserted that there had been no violations of the right to personal liberty because the various witnesses of the arrest had stated that José Delfín Acosta had been out on the street drunk and disturbing the peace, which was sufficient reason for him to be detained by the appropriate authorities, in accordance with objectively established procedures. 15. Regarding the right to humane treatment/personal integrity and the right to life, the Argentine State asserted that it was not guilty of violating them since: i) the first autopsy performed on the alleged victim had shown that injuries ascertained were not such as to have caused his death and the autopsy performed in Uruguay had concluded that it was not possible to determine cause of death; ii) the death had been caused by a combination of alcoholic substances and cocaine, so that the police had had no option but to call an ambulance immediately, which they did; and iii) the alleged victim had beaten his head against the floor while he was at the police station, self-inflicting the wounds found on his body. Therefore, the Argentine State indicates that there are no grounds for assigning it responsibility in the instant case. 16. The State also stated that it had not violated the right to judicial guarantees or protection before the law because the petitioners had had the opportunity to resort to all bodies in the internal judicial system and to make their case before a judge. It likewise asserted that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the existence of any "objective" or "subjective" fear of a lack of independence or impartiality on the part of the judges intervening in the various courts in the internal judicial system. The State indicated that there was no basis in fact for the petitioners' argument that evidence submitted had been ignored because the only means of proof that had been rejected was the plaintiffs' demand to re-summons everyone who had already made statements in the case, some of them several times. In the State's view, the fact of the matter is that the petitioners are unhappy with the appraisal made of the evidence during the investigation. The State asserted that the petitioner’s intention is for the Commission to act as a "fourth judicial instance." 17. Regarding the alleged violation of the right to equal protection before the law, the State maintained that "such a serious allegation cannot be based on mere suppositions, such as those entertained by the petitioners." III. DETERMINATIONS OF FACT A. Police edicts in Buenos Aires and information regarding racial discrimination 18. It is an undisputed fact that at the time referred to in this case there were police edicts authorizing the detention of people without an arrest warrant caught in flagrante delictu. Thus, "[d]uring the period from 1991 to 2003, the crime control policy in the city of Buenos Aires was largely designed and implemented by the National State –with various exceptions-. In that same period, the police institution in this city has been the Argentine Federal Police. ...it developed intervention techniques aimed at “crime prevention,” which have traditionally been grounded on legal instruments and regulations and shaped by cultural implementation of positivist criminology. These techniques include police presence and surveillance in public spaces and police detention of individuals without a court order. In the framework of the latter technique of police intervention, one can in turn highlight police detention of individuals without a court order, supported by police edicts."4 4 I/A Court HR. Case of Bulacio v. Argentina. Expert opinion of Máximo Emiliano Sozzo. Judgment of September 18, 2003.