02/06/2021 11:06
Clarín.com
World
Updated 02/06/2021 11:06
A new act of apparent police brutality outraged to Chile, after a video circulated that went viral on social networks and showed
a policeman shooting in cold blood at a young juggler
who did not want to submit to a routine police check.
The incident returns to focus on the protocols of the Carabineros police force, questioned after a series of cases of alleged abuses.
The images immediately unleashed
protests and serious incidents
in different parts of Panguipulli, in the southern region of Los Ríos where the events occurred, 800 kilometers south of Santiago de Chile.
Groups of protesters set up barricades in different parts of Panguipulli and set fire to the municipal building around midnight, despite the curfew in force since 10 p.m. due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The fire also affected the offices of the municipal post office and the Civil Registry, according to local media, while anti-riot agents confronted them with tear gas and water-throwing cars, according to local media images.
The indignation also reached the capital, and sparked protests in the center of Santiago, with
barricades and clashes with the police
in an atmosphere of marked hostility.
In a video widely disseminated on social networks, it is seen how the young Francisco Martínez is approached by police officers after allegedly resisting an identity check in the heart of the southern town.
While arguing, according to the recording,
one of the officers shoots the juggler,
who lashes out and draws two long knives from his street show and is eventually killed.
"He was quite respectful, a peaceful person, who always walked with a couple of dogs," the mayor of the town, Rodrigo Valdivia, said on the local channel CNN Chile.
The Carabineros police force, questioned by the
brutality with which it repressed the 2019 protests
against inequality, indicated in a statement that the agents "in safeguarding their own lives, decided and should have used firearms within the context of of legitimate self-defense ".
"As a municipality, we regret the loss of this young juggler. I hope that the responsibilities are established through the courts and that justice is done," Ricardo Valdivia, mayor of Panguipulli, told Radio Cooperativa.
"As a government, we regret the situation that occurred this afternoon in Panguipulli, where in a street incident that is being investigated, a person died on the public highway after a policeman used his service weapon," said the mayor of Los Ríos. , Cesar Asenjo.
The protests for another case of police brutality reached Santiago de Chile, where there were clashes with the police this Friday.
Photo: DPA
"The Panguipulli Prosecutor's Office is carrying out investigation procedures with the Homicide Brigade and the PDI Criminalistics Laboratory for the death of a young man as a result of the shooting by a policeman in the center of this commune of the (hash) RegiónDeLosRíos ", reported the Prosecutor's Office in a message on Twitter.
Police arguments
"It was an identity check procedure," said Colonel Boris Alegria Michellod, who stated that the juggler was carrying "knives of the machete type."
He added that the police asked him to put down the machetes and the young man "did not do so, on the contrary, he pounced on the police personnel," at which the police fired "warning" shots to the ground.
The young man, the colonel said, persisted in pouncing on the police, so "in safeguarding their own integrity and their own lives, they decided and should have used firearms within the context of legitimate self-defense."
Indignation returned to Chile after the death of a young man shot by a policeman.
Photo: DPA
According to the Investigative Police (PDI),
the young man died after receiving at least four gunshot wounds
.
Cataract of criticism
The events sparked a wave of
criticism from the opposition and from human rights organizations,
who reiterated the "urgency" to re-found the police force, while on social media the hashtags #PacosAsesinos (a derogatory and popular name with which meet the Carabineros) and # NuevaPolicíaParaChile were two of the most shared.
"We said that the Carabineros acts with the intention of harming, that must be stopped. That the tradition of impunity must be broken, including the entire line of command. That a profound and structural reform is necessary. What about Panguipulli shows once again that we were right" Ana Piquer, the director in Chile of the NGO Amnesty International, said on Twitter.
The autonomous National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) added that "it is of utmost importance that the use of force is rational and proportional."
📍Región de Los Ríos👉 We express our dismay at the dramatic events that occurred in Panguipulli.
It is of the utmost importance that the use of force is rational and proportional.
Professionals from the regional headquarters are on site collecting all the background information.
- NHRI Chile (@inddhh) February 5, 2021
At the end of 2019, Chile experienced the most serious social crisis since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
A wave of protests that began due to the increase in the subway ticket but which spread to a series of demands due to the historical inequality in the country caused harsh confrontations and harsh repression.
The wave of protests left more than 30 dead, more than 450 victims of ocular trauma and
more than 4,000 complaints of human rights violations,
including rape, threats, torture, excessive use of force, stripping and others.
This week the INDH, which documented those events classified as the most serious "human rights violations since the return of democracy", affirmed that the country is closer to "impunity" than to "truth and justice" after the slow act of justice when more than a year and a half have passed since some of these events and there are almost no convictions.
Criticism against the police force, once well valued by citizens, intensified last October of last year, a few days after the first anniversary of the social outbreak, when an agent threw a minor into the bed of a river during a protest.
"It is unacceptable for a police officer to kill a street juggler at point-blank range and with five bullets. How can there not be a protocol of the Chilean state police forces that prevents these situations from ending with one death?", Rene Naranjo, candidate, tweeted a Constituent and one of the 155 people who would write the New Constitution of the country after the October plebiscite that determined to replace the Magna Carta of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
"The images of Panguipulli are terrible. The handling of arms by the police who are granted a monopoly in the use of force should be judicious and as a last resort," tweeted lawyer and well-known former prosecutor Carlos Gajardo.
Source: EFE, AP and AFP
CB
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