The Chilean government orderedor to Carabineros the reorganization of more than 700 police officers in the communes where they registered an increase in violent crimes. President Gabriel Boric confirmed that it will investigate the indications of an alleged complicity between carabineros and the merchants who opened fire in the town of Estación Central. In addition, the Minister of the Interior, Izkia Sichesannounced that he will present the security agenda to Congress after the acts of violence recorded over the weekend.
security deployment
Boric announced a police redistribution that in its first stage foresees the redeployment of more than 750 troops in the communes of Estación Central, Santiago, Antofagasta and Valparaíso. “When we have to use the force of the State, of course we are going to do it. That is what we are doing in the case of these mafias of [el barrio] Meiggs, where there is going to be no tolerance for criminal gangs,” Boric said on a local radio.
The Chilean president’s measure responds to what happened in recent days when merchants opened fire on people who marched for International Workers’ Day in a mobilization parallel to that of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores. Five people were injured, including the television journalist Francisca Sandoval from Sign 3 of La Victoria. The director of that medium, Benjamín Lillo, assured that it was an attack on alternative media. “We believe that they were shooting at us directly because it is no less than that of the five people who received injuries, three are from the independent press. There was premeditation of those who sought to attack”he stated interviewed in a Chilean media.
On the other hand, the Boric government will also investigate a series of images released on social networks where it is seen that the merchants who shot in the Meiggs neighborhood were talking to police officers, as reported by the news portal The counter. The announcement was made by Constanza Martínez, the presidential delegate of the Metropolitan Region, who indicated that there will be coordinated work with the police to combat organized crime. “First, if there is room for eventual retraining of people working in the illicit trade. Second, strengthen the control in the spaces where illicit trade takes place and third, dismantle the criminal organizations behind the illicit trade”, affirmed Martínez, quoted by the local media.
comprehensive answers
After the acts of violence this week, Boric advocated addressing the problem in a comprehensive manner. Y not “continue patch over patch” on security issues. “Quick solutions do not bring results and we have to work together with the Carabineros. And we are not going to allow (…) any type of association with criminal gangs. Therefore, we are carrying out all the pertinent investigation so that the behavior of our police forces is up to the tremendous challenge of dismantling these criminal gangs.“, specified the head of state.
Referring to the violence in the south of the country, the Chilean president assured that the solution is not to insist on what was done before. “If we keep repeating the same logic of only repression, application of the anti-terrorist law, state of siege… What results have we had so far?”he asked himself.
In this sense, the Minister of the Interior, Izkia Sichesannounced that present the security agenda before the Security Commission in the Chilean Congress after the events that the minister described as intolerable. “We have requested to accelerate the investigative skills in this particular case, but we have also instructed our lawyers to request the most burdensome precautionary measures”Siches pointed out and added that this Friday they will launch the Advisory Council to confront organized crime.
“We have the great challenge of recovering the Meiggs neighborhood, of facing what we are going to do with those organized gangs, as well as having a strategy for itinerant commerce that is deployed in different of these territories,” said the Minister of the Interior at a press conference. .
Siches also announced the arrest of the suspect for shooting the Chilean journalist Francisca Sandoval, currently hospitalized and life-threatening. The Homicide Brigade of the Investigative Police (PDI) arrested the suspect, identified as Marcelo Naranjo, 41 years old, in the commune of Pedro Aguirre Cerda.
According to the director of the PDI, Sergio Muñoz“it was possible to establish that (Naranjo) was in the line of fire, using a weapon, shooting it. Regarding the statements and interviews that were obtained at the scene of the event, it was possible to position him in the place and establish that he would be the perpetrator of the shots that injured the victim”.