Demonstrators protest September 11 in Bogotá, Colombia.Diego Cuevas / Getty Images
The first thing Laura Martínez, 29, notices, is that her throat is bothering her from the tear gas she has breathed in this week.
"We have the right to protest because we get tired of police abuse," declares with a hoarse voice this engineer dedicated to social work who has participated steadily in the mobilizations against the public force in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, after the death of the lawyer and engineer Javier Ordóñez in police custody early Wednesday morning.
Martínez lives in the Usme sector, in the south of the city, but that day he traveled to Engativá, in the west, to demonstrate in front of the Immediate Action Command (CAI), where the agents took Ordóñez after having subjected him to multiple electric shocks despite his pleading with them to stop.
The new symbol of police brutality in Colombia arrived at a hospital near the CAI without signs of life, and the images of the agents submitting it became the spark that ignited the anger against the security forces.
"We told the police that they were murderers," while they prevented the protesters - many women - from approaching the CAI, says Laura.
There were groups that insulted and threw stones at the uniformed men while the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) surrounded them and then dispersed them with tear gas.
“The same police collected the stones and threw them, they hit me on the knee.
They began to act in a totally unbridled way.
Those who fell were run over by motorcycle tires, ”says Laura, who stayed in the surrounding streets until around eight o'clock in the afternoon, when she went to meet other protesters in the Hippies Park. in another area of Bogotá.
The mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, resides there and they went to demand more control from the police.
The police stations became the target of the mobilizations.
Tatiana Hernández, a 24-year-old social worker, and Andrey Téllez, a 33-year-old teacher, attended a peaceful protest in front of another CAI in Ciudad Bolívar, a popular neighborhood.
There the clashes also arrived at dusk;
and what began as an exchange of stones, led to a police charge of "kicks, fists and bolts," says Hernández.
The policemen saw how Téllez recorded everything with his cell phone.
When he resisted giving it to him, the agents beat him and took him to the CAI.
He was held, along with 14 other people, in a small cell, where they pepper sprayed them, wet them, beat them and took their papers and cell phones.
Téllez came out with four broken teeth and took four stitches on his head and bruises on his forehead, chest, abdomen and knee.
Finally, the detainees were released at midnight thanks to the intervention of the Ombudsman's Office.
"It's not the first time.
We are tired of the abuse of authority, here it is seen quite frequently, ”says Hernández.
The couple has already filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office.
“To remain silent in the face of this type of thing is not good, it is a reality that young people live here in the territory, threatened by the public force.
Social mobilization is a key scenario to demand rights and denounce violence ”, Hernández values.
"What remains is dignity to continue resisting and fighting," complements Téllez, who intends to continue marching, still convalescing.
The incidents of that confusing night of clashes and riots resulted in 10 citizens dead, all by firearm, and more than 200 injured.
There were also more than 100 police officers injured.
On Thursday night three other deaths were registered.
The mayor has denounced that there is evidence of the indiscriminate use of firearms by members of the police, while the attorney general, Fernando Carrillo, sent a letter to the Minister of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, in which he asked him directly if the force public shot at citizens.
On Thursday, Laura Martínez resumed the mobilization in her town, where many neighbors marched with candles, but the police shots, according to her account, dispersed the people.
She returned to take shelter in her house, from where she heard screams and gunshots in another day of anxiety.
But she intends to continue protesting despite the risks.
“This is going to become a pitched battle.
People are going to get rocks and sticks to defend themselves from the police ”, he predicts.
"A police reform is necessary now."
Among the many videos of excessive use of force that have been made public in the South American country, there is one in which police officers attack Juan Camilo Gómez, a 22-year-old student of Political Science and Social Communication.
He came out on Thursday to cover various protests for the university
outlet De Pasillo
.
When he arrived at a concentration in a park, he felt the violence and put on the helmet on which the word "very big" was written, he says.
Despite this, the policemen threw him to the ground and hit him on the head.
Gomez lost her glasses and broke her lip.