Carabineros de Chile, in the eye of the hurricane due to the fall of a young man into a river in the middle of a demonstration

Two weeks after the one-year anniversary of the social outbreak of October 18, 2019, a date that the Chilean authorities have marked by the probability of a resurgence of protests, the Carabineros de Chile has once again been left in an impossible situation.

A 16-year-old who was demonstrating in Santiago last night was injured after a fall from a bridge to the Mapocho river, the main river in the Chilean capital, by the action of a policeman who pushed him, according to videos released by different sources.

The Prosecutor's Office investigates the facts, the government of Sebastián Piñera was slow to pronounce and the police institution has initiated an administrative investigation, along with suspending its official from activities on the ground.

Meanwhile, the political opposition calls for the resignation of the General Director of the Carabineros, Mario Rozas.

"Faced with the video records that show how a Carabineros official throws an adolescent into the bed of the Mapocho river, who is hospitalized in a health center, we will file a complaint for attempted homicide," the Children's Ombudsman announced last night.

According to the Minister of the Interior, Víctor Pérez, "the truth of the facts will be determined by the investigation by the Public Ministry and the courts."

Along with regretting "that a young man is injured in a demonstration" and making all the information available to the respective authorities, the person in charge of internal security and public order indicated that the incident occurred in the midst of "a rapid police procedure, where people are running ”and where“ new protocols were used ”.

The minister alluded to the new practices that, supposedly, the questioned institution is carrying out to act in the midst of public disorder.

In the framework of the social unrest of a year ago, the Carabineros has been the institution hardest hit by the practice of excessive use of force, abuses and "serious violations of human rights", as denounced by Human Right Watch (HRW).

According to a report from the Prosecutor's Office with updated data up to March, of the 493 people reported for various crimes committed by State agents, 444 belong to the Carabineros, 30 to the Investigative Police, 13 to the Army, four to the Navy and two to other institutions.

According to Lucía Dammert, an academic at the University of Santiago and security expert, “we don't know what happened”: “Beyond the suggestions of two expert commissions and the conversations with the Government to move forward with a reform process, there is no accompanied process, but rather we know from the press that changes and restructuring have been announced in recent weeks ”.

"In other words, transformations may be being carried out, but their opacity means that trust with other actors cannot be built," adds Dammert, who considers a long-term reform plan with clear stages necessary.

As the mobility restrictions due to the pandemic have begun to be lifted - almost all of Santiago is without quarantine - the Friday protests in Plaza Italia have re-emerged.

When the health crisis exploded in March, the Chilean social movement showed its strength in the streets, as when on March 8, some two million women marched, according to the organizers.

Covid-19, however, put a stop to the demonstrations in the streets.

Last night, hundreds of people gathered in the urban epicenter of social mobilizations in the capital and, as often happens, there were clashes between protesters and police: there were 21 detainees and 18 police officers injured, according to official information.

It was the context of the fall of the 16-year-old: he was escaping with a crowd from a group of uniformed men.

According to various videos that have been broadcast - including one from the Municipality of Santiago - a police officer was going to arrest him and would have pushed him.

The adolescent was lying face down without movement and it was other protesters who went down to the river bed to rescue him.

Carabineros has been changing their version of events.

Last night, Lieutenant Rodrigo Soto denied that an official threw the minor into the river: "I want to flatly deny this type of situation (...) Enough of lying to people with things that the Carabineros has never done."

Then, last night, in a second intervention, Soto indicated: “What the Carabineros denied and completely refutes again is that this person was taken by the feet or that he was thrown into the river by a jet from the water-launching car, such as it was invented by witnesses on social networks ”.

This morning, meanwhile, the Santiago Oeste Zone Chief, General Enrique Monrás, indicated: “One of our police officers was trying to arrest a young man and he lost his balance on the railing of the Pío Nono bridge and fell to the river bank. Mapocho ”.

According to the general, it is being investigated whether he fell alone or was pushed.

He indicated that it was Carabineros who called the emergency and firefighters for the rescue and if they did not collaborate in the rescue, it was because the police were attacked by the crowd.

Two weeks after the anniversary of October 18 and three weeks after the constitutional plebiscite, where Chile will decide whether or not to replace the Fundamental Charter of 1980, drawn up during the Pinchet dictatorship, what happened last night puts the authorities of the Piñera government in trouble.

On the one hand, the Executive must guarantee public order and, on the other, it cannot allow new police abuses, which could unleash a new wave of protests.

Dozens of calls to protest circulate on social networks this Saturday, in rejection of what happened last night and despite the pandemic.

The injured young man, meanwhile, is admitted to the Santa María clinic in Santiago de Chile, out of life risk.

He had a closed tec, a broken wrist, a cut on his scalp.

He is conscious, stable and under observation.