Santiago, January 23, 2024 — A 30-year-old Carabineros first corporal died early Tuesday morning after a traffic collision in the capital city, sparking an investigation into a possible attempted robbery. The officer was struck by a vehicle that fled the scene, according to authorities.
Officer Involved in Fatal Crash, Possible Robbery Attempt Under Investigation
The death of a Carabineros officer following a motorcycle accident is being investigated as a potential robbery gone wrong.
- The officer, a member of the Dog Training Group, was off-duty when the incident occurred.
- Witnesses reported a possible attempted robbery involving a “trap” before the crash.
- A vehicle allegedly ran a red light and collided with the officer’s motorcycle at the intersection of Ñuble and San Diego streets.
- Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a robbery with resulting injuries, now a homicide.
General Álex Bahamondez, head of the Western Zone of Carabineros, confirmed the officer’s death, stating, “We are lamenting a terrible event, a traffic accident in which an official of our institution participates who died… The vehicle that collided with the motorcycle he was riding on fled, not paying attention to the victim.” The crash occurred at 00:35 a.m. at the intersection of Ñuble and San Diego streets in the Santiago commune.
According to witness accounts, the officer may have been targeted by unknown individuals attempting to steal his vehicle using a “trap” prior to the collision. Investigators are exploring whether the officer sustained injuries with a sharp weapon while resisting the alleged crime.
The officer was reportedly struck by a vehicle while attempting to escape the situation. Despite the swift response of emergency teams, he died at the scene due to the severity of his injuries.
Prosecutor Fernando Ruiz, from the North Central Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office, indicated the initial investigation began as “a robbery with injuries and, later, they are confirmed by the death of the official who, in this case, was a victim.” Ruiz added, “With the first steps, we are not ruling out any hypothesis, but we can preliminarily establish that the circumstance in which this unfortunate event occurred is related to the collision between two vehicles that were traveling, one on Ñuble Street and the other on San Diego Street.”
Ruiz explained that a white car “would not have respected the red traffic light and would have collided with the motorcycle in which the official was traveling, which is ejected and falls on the public road.”
Entrapment Hypothesis Investigated
Regarding the witness account of a prior attempted robbery, Prosecutor Ruiz stated, “We cannot rule out that the official has been fleeing from a possible robbery. Therefore, it is a situation that the various procedures we are carrying out must confirm or rule out. Particularly, and the security cameras that have been erected have been quite illustrative, they have not been able to give a more or less clear idea of the time and the manner in which the collision between these two vehicles occurred.”
Police initially responded to the traffic accident before expanding the investigation to include the possibility of a frustrated robbery attempt, as the vehicle was not stolen. The crash site was secured to facilitate evidence collection and investigative work.
Specialized teams from OS-9, the Criminalistics Laboratory (Labocar), and the Traffic Accident Investigation Section (SIAT) of Carabineros are working to reconstruct the sequence of events, determine if there was contact with potential aggressors, and gather evidence and testimonies to clarify the circumstances surrounding the officer’s death. Investigations are also underway to identify and locate those involved in the alleged crime.
