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In mid-September, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic filed charges against seven generals of the High Command of the Carabineros for their alleged administrative responsibilities in the actions of the police during the demonstrations in the country, within the framework of the social outbreak that began on 18 October.
Those appointed by the regulatory body are the National Director of Order and Security, Ricardo Yáñez Reveco; Inspector Generals Jorge Valenzuela Hernández, who heads the Police Operations Support division, and Mauricio Rodríguez Rodríguez, head of the Metropolitan Area; the head of the Santiago East Zone, Enrique Bassaletti, the head of the Santiago West Zone, Enrique Monrás Álvarez; the head of the Fifth Valparaíso Zone, Hugo Zenteno, and the Director of Logistics, Jean Camus Dávila.
The Comptroller’s Office pointed out that these seven generals would not have guaranteed compliance with the “protocols for the use of force contained in the internal manuals that operated up to that date,” such as the use of riot-fighting shotguns and their ammunition, which ended up injuring hundreds of protesters . The summary compiled also contained other information, such as changes in the cartridges for riot control shotguns, distance studies, and a 2012 report called “Riot-Riot Shotgun Shooting Using Rubber Cartridge and Its Effects on the Surface of the Human Body.”
However, according to the newspaper The MercurySome of the seven generals were unaware of this latest report. In the summary, Vivian Bustos, forensic expert from the Legal Medical Service and adviser to Labocar, affirmed that one of the problems in the use of riot control shotguns is distance. “I would not shoot, because it is a very unsafe ammunition; when you shoot it is because you want to hit the target. Here you cannot, you cannot determine where the ammunition will fall,” declared Bustos, according to the aforementioned media.
“I think this ammunition is at the limit of dissuasiveness, because although it has a dissuasive purpose, it would be generated more than 40 meters away, but when this element is lost there is no deterrent effect,” he added.
“The use of the ammunition from the anti-riot shotgun should only generate pain (…), not irreparable damage, the loss of the organ’s functionality,” added the expert, who worked on this 2012 report.
Camus Dávila, who appears with one of the many statements that the Comptroller’s Office began taking as of March of this year, was unaware of the 2012 report. “I was not aware of the report prior to the outbreak. I only knew about it later. If not I’m wrong, it was created for the purchase of the ammunition contained in the report. The report gives an account of the risk in the use of ammunition, in relation to the distances used. I understand that this report was available to the training sessions in the use of the shotgun, “Camus declared. Said report was prepared by the Carabineros.
Similar testimony gave General Yáñez, who affirmed that he learned about the study “only when the prosecutor Ximena Chong showed it to me.” He explained that it was requested by the Directorate of Education and assured that “I do not know the use of the report” and that “not only was a purchase made on the date of the report, but also in 2016 the same ammunition was purchased.”
Camus, meanwhile, did know about the change of ammunition: the one with 12 8-mm posts was replaced by one of three 1.7-mm posts, acquiring 20,000 rounds at the end of 2019.
“As a result of the injuries in many citizens, the idea of changing the cartridge to one that was known and used by the PDI and, I believe, the Gendarmerie, was sought and presented,” said Camus, confirming that the use of 12 posts remained for level 5 in an “imminent risk of life of the carabinero.”
“Studies were made of materials offered, in which a batch of about 20 thousand cartridges was purchased. This purchase was made at the end of 2019. As of today we have a prohibition on the purchase of 12 cartridges, by budget gloss” he explained.
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