The death of a juggler shot by a carabinero sparks fury in Chile

A new act of apparently scandalous police brutality for Chile, after a video was released which went viral on social media and showed A policeman shooting a young juggler in cold blood that he did not want to submit to a routine police check. The incident returns to focus on the protocols of the Carabineros police, interviewed after a series of cases of suspected abuse.

The images immediately unleashed protests and serious incidents in various points of Panguipulli, in the southern region of Los Ríos where the events occurred, 800 kilometers south of Santiago de Chile,

Groups of protesters erected barricades in different parts of Panguipulli and torched the municipal building around midnight, despite the 10 p.m. curfew in effect due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fire also affected the municipal post office and civil status offices, according to local media, as riot officers confronted them with tear gas and water jets, according to footage from the police. local media.

Outrage also reached the capital, and sparked protests in central Santiago, with barricades and clashes with the police in an environment of marked hostility.

In a video widely circulated on social networks, we see how the young Francisco Martínez is approached by police officers after allegedly resisting an identity check in the heart of the southern city.

As they argued, according to the recording, one of the officers shoots the juggler, who goes on a rampage and pulls two long knives from his street show and is ultimately shot.

“He was quite respectful, a peaceful person, who always walked with a couple of dogs,” the city’s mayor, Rodrigo Valdivia, told local channel CNN Chile.

The Carabineros police, questioned by the brutality with which he suppressed the protests of 2019 Against inequalities, he said in a statement that the agents “by protecting their own lives, have decided and should have used firearms in self-defense”.

“As a municipality, we regret the loss of this young juggler. I hope that the responsibilities will be established by the courts and that justice will be 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 which is under investigation, a person died on the public road after a policeman used his service weapon, “said the mayor of Los Ríos., Cesar Asenjo.

“At the moment, the Panguipulli prosecutor’s office is carrying out investigative procedures with the Homicide Brigade and the PDI Forensic Laboratory for the death of a young man following the shooting of a police officer in the center of this commune in (hash) RegiónDeLosRíos “, reported the prosecution in a message on Twitter.

Police arguments

“It was an identity check procedure,” said Colonel Boris Alegria Michellod, who said the juggler was carrying “machete-type knives”.

He added that the police had asked him to put down the machetes and that the young man “had not done so, on the contrary, he threw himself on the police personnel”, on whom the police fired shots of “warning ” on the ground.

The young man, the colonel said, continued to pounce on the police, so “safeguarding their own integrity and their own lives, they decided and should have used firearms in self-defense.”

According to the investigative police (PDI), the young man died after receiving at least four gunshot wounds.

Critical cataract

The events sparked a wave of criticism of the opposition and human rights organizations, who reiterated the “urgency” to overhaul the police, while on social media the hashtags #PacosAsesinos (a derogatory and popular name by which the carabineros are known) and # NuevaPolicíaParaChile were two of the most shared.

“We have said that the Carabineros are acting with intent to harm, this must be stopped. That the tradition of impunity must be broken, including the entire line of command. we were right, ”said Ana Piquer, director in Chile of the NGO Amnesty International, on Twitter.

The National Autonomous Institute of Human Rights (INDH) added that “it is of the utmost importance that the use of force is rational and proportionate”.

At the end of 2019, Chile experienced the most serious social crisis since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). A wave of protests that started because of the increase in the metro ticket but which has spread to a series of demands due to the historical inequality in the country has provoked violent clashes and severe repression.

The wave of protests has left more than 30 dead, more than 450 victims of eye trauma and more than 4000 complaints for human rights violations, which include rape, threats, torture, excessive use of force, undressing and others.

This week, the NHRI, which documented these events classified as the “most serious human rights violations since the return of democracy,” said 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 has passed since some of these events and there are almost no convictions.

Criticism of law enforcement, once popular with citizens, escalated last October last year, days after the first anniversary of the social epidemic, when an agent threw a minor into the bed of a river during a demonstration.

“It is unacceptable for a policeman to kill a street juggler at point blank range and with five bullets. How can there not be a Chilean State Police Force protocol that prevents these situations from ending in one dead? ” René Naranjo, candidate, tweeted a Constituent and one of the 155 people who would write the country’s New Constitution after the October plebiscite which decided to replace the Magna Carta of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

“The images of Panguipulli are terrible. The handling of weapons by the police who are granted a monopoly on the use of force must be judicious and as a last resort,” tweeted lawyer and well-known former prosecutor Carlos Gajardo.

Source: EFE, AP and AFP

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