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The director of the Police, Óscar Atehortúa, spoke about how the investigations into the acts of violence registered on September 9 and 10 are progressing, when police officers fired in protests for the murder of Javier Ordóñez, at the hands of uniformed men.
Atehortúa assured that he ordered a team of disciplinary investigators of 50 people to travel to Bogotá to verify what happened.
He also said that due to these facts, 77 disciplinary investigations, 67 of them in Bogotá, which include 101 investigated police officers.
(Read also: At the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, a hearing against police officers will be reserved).
About those investigations, he said, 10 police officers have already been suspended because “Through the evidence collected we have observed that, apparently, they exceeded the norms and had excesses in their actions.” One of the suspended police officers, Atehortúa pointed out, was a uniformed man who in videos is seen wearing an inside-out jacket and “had a forceful element attacking a person.”
He also said that it was found that 14 investigated police officers used firearms. And an inter-institutional group was created with the Attorney General’s Office, the Ombudsman’s Office, and human rights delegates, to jointly receive these investigations.
Atehortúa assured that, in any case, this will be established in an investigation in which due process will be guaranteed. But, she said, the objective is to be “forceful with the actions and showing that there are results in the community.”
Regarding the demonstrations that are called for this Monday, the general assured that the police will not carry weapons, since that is the protocol that is always followed in protests. “It is clear and the protocols are determined. Those protocols say that those who accompany the peaceful demonstrations will not be able to carry firearms,” he said.
Atehortúa recalled that, according to health regulations in the framework of the pandemic, there cannot be crowds of more than 50 people. He also invited human rights defenders to accompany the demonstrations to verify the behavior of the police officers, and activated the mechanisms to receive complaints and reports about the actions of the uniformed men.
(Also: The Ombudsman’s questions about cases of police abuse).
On the murder of Javier Ordóñez for which charges are being brought against two ex-patrolmen implicated in those events this Saturday, Atehortúa said that he hopes that there will be “divine justice and human justice, and that the responsibility for these acts will be established through the competent authorities,” he said.
JUSTICE
