The murder of a policeman puts pressure on the Boric government to toughen measures against crime

A group of police guards the coffin of his murdered companion Daniel Palma, during his funeral in Santiago, this April 8.@Carabdechile (RR SS)

The cold-blooded murder of a 33-year-old police corporal on Wednesday, in the heart of Santiago de Chile, has made clear the deep security crisis facing the country.

The Government of Gabriel Boric, which began its administration a year and a month ago without having public order among its priorities, has been pressured to make crime control its main priority.

For an Administration led by a new generation of the left that has had public liberties among its flags, it constitutes a great turnaround.

The change started on September 4, when 62% of Chileans rejected the proposal for a new Constitution supported by La Moneda, which after the electoral upheaval decided to take charge of the political agenda that has a daily impact on people's lives.

as crime control itself.

The murder of the policeman this week, however, the third in the last month, has represented a turning point for society and politics itself.

It is the context in which both the Government and Parliament have agreed to approve 10 bills on public security in the next 90 days.

This Saturday the funerals of the murdered police officer, Daniel Palma, were held in the city of Rancagua, about 100 kilometers south of Santiago, where the institution's 1233 martyr was from.

Since Thursday itself, citizens have demonstrated en masse in different parts of the country.

That afternoon, hundreds of people from the capital gathered in what was the epicenter of the protests since 2019, Plaza Italia, but this time to support the Carabineros, in a cry to the authorities for higher levels of security.

The shock has touched the main political authorities.

In a sign of unity, President Boric and former presidents Sebastián Piñera, Michelle Bachelet and Ricardo Lagos agreed on the response that took place a few hours after the murder in the Carabineros church, in the Providencia municipality.

In Rancagua, Palma's body was transferred this Saturday to the city's cathedral.

Citizens took to the streets to express their support for the family and the institution, with banners, white and green balloons –the colors of the Carabineros–, and to make an appeal against crime.

Inside the church, in Plaza Los Héroes, the victim's brother, Mauricio Palma, made a harsh intervention against the authorities.

“Enough of prosecutors and judges who don't do their job.

I don't understand the purpose of wasting resources, preventing crime, risking the lives of our police officers to catch criminals, if the next day these same criminals are released," said the relative of the dead policeman, to the applause of the audience and of the hundreds of people who listened to him outside the church.

"I call on parliamentarians to do their job, because at this time,

It was too big [the challenge got out of hand].

Harden the penalties, that justice is not only a word that goes from mouth to mouth.

It cannot be that a criminal has more rights than a police officer.

This cannot go on”, added Mauricio Palma, before the private funeral in the city cemetery.

A group of demonstrators in a protest in support of the carabineros, on April 6, in Santiago.

ELVIS GONZALEZ (EFE)

Since a police officer was assassinated two weeks ago in Quilpué, in the Valparaíso region, the political class has hastened a legislative agenda against crime.

President Boric has promulgated in recent days laws that reinforce the powers of the Gendarmerie and creates the crime of extortion, which increases the penalties for the crime of carrying weapons in highly crowded places, which modifies the Penal Code to aggravate the penalty of crime of kidnapping and the one that strengthens and protects the exercise of the function of the Carabineros, the Investigative Police (PDI) and the Gendarmerie.

Baptized as the Naín-Retamal law, in homage to two murdered police officers, it gives them greater powers to confront criminals.

The law pushed by the Government, however, did not have the support in Parliament from his coalition,

The Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, who entered the Government after the September plebiscite, has taken the problem of crime control into her own hands.

After the last murder of the carabinero, she announced that 30 of the municipalities in Chile where the highest crime rates are concentrated will be intervened.

On Friday, in a meeting between Tohá and the president of the Senate, Juan Antonio Coloma, from the opposition, and with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Vlado Mirosevic, from the ruling party, it was agreed to approve 10 security bills in 90 days.

Among them, the one that aims to create a Ministry of Security, give greater powers to municipalities in crime control, the change in the probation of repeat offenders and in the notification of the expulsion of undocumented foreigners.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, also harden their tone.

The Chilean Public Ministry announced that the prosecutors of the Metropolitan Region, that of Santiago de Chile, will request the preventive detention of all foreigners accused of a crime who do not have a National Identity Document (DNI).

This, because two of the suspects in the crime, who have not been located, are of Venezuelan nationality.

The social and political climate puts pressure on the Government regarding key decisions.

Various political forces, not only from the opposition, are pushing La Moneda to decree a state of constitutional exception in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile to combat crime.

It is requested by mayors and the capital's governor, Claudio Orrego.

The Executive, until now, has not ruled it out.