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The death of Javier Ordóñez, a 46-year-old lawyer, in the custody of the Police, after being subjected to incessant electric shocks with a type weapon Taser in a Bogotá street despite being subdued by the agents in the early hours of this Wednesday, has rekindled the debate on the excessive use of force and the brutality of the uniformed in Colombia. The mayor of the capital, Claudia López, has promised to act in conjunction with the control bodies to seek a structural reform to stop the episodes of police abuse that have stirred up public debate.
The images of the moment in which two policemen subject the lawyer Javier Ordóñez, a father of two children, to electric shocks, in the Santa Cecilia neighborhood, in the town of Engativá, in western Bogotá, have flooded social networks and provoked commotion in the country. In the video, the agents kneel on him in an episode that recalls what happened in the United States with George Floyd. For more than two minutes, several people record them, and Ordóñez, shirtless, is heard pleading for them to stop. “I’m drowning”, manages to explain agitated in the middle of the electroshock. “He is telling them that, please, we are recording them,” witnesses warn the police as they ask them to release him. “Why do they keep attacking him if he said please a while ago?” the neighbors ask without getting an answer until another pair of agents arrive.
The police officers mobilized before a call “for an alleged fight”, and upon arriving at the scene they found eight people arguing, under the influence of alcohol, according to the arguments of Colonel Alexander Amaya. “It is about dissuading these people but they become aggressive against the Police. The Police must submit them and some of these people are taken to the CAI [Centro de Atención Inmediata]. At this time, one presents discomfort in her physical health and is immediately transferred to the nearest medical center. Unfortunately, she arrives without vital signs ”, she declared first thing in the morning. According to the testimonies of Ordóñez’s friends that the media have collected, one of the agents told him “he is not saved from this”, while he replied that they should proceed to put him in court – alcohol consumption is restricted in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic – before the aggression broke out.
In her first reactions, the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, of the progressive Alianza Verde party, offered family members legal assistance and also proposed an exemplary sentence for those directly responsible, “a structural reform that prevents and punishes police abuse.” The Mayor’s Office has rejected and denounced the abuses, but the institution has not taken serious measures, so it will insist on those changes together with the Attorney General’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office. “This is not about bad apples. Life is sacred! ”He said, anticipating a common argument in Colombia when there is talk of inappropriate behavior on the part of the uniformed. “Police abuse is unacceptable,” emphasized the mayor.
Pending the autopsy, which could shed new light on what happened, the case was prioritized by the attorney general’s office. Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo also indicated that “he rejects and condemns any act by a member of the Police that violates the law or ignores internal regulations.” He stressed that the two agents are already subject to both disciplinary and criminal investigation, and the institution will provide all the collaboration required by the competent authorities.
The excessive use of force has stirred public discussion, particularly since the wave of protests against the government of Iván Duque that rocked the country late last year. During these marches, a shot by the controversial Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) of the Police killed Dilan Cruz, a young protester who became a symbol of social mobilization, during a peaceful protest in the center of Bogotá. “We are not going to allow, in any way, the abuse of power by any authority against that legitimate citizen expression,” the mayor promised on January 1 in her inauguration speech. Although social protest has been deactivated by the pandemic, reports of small episodes of police abuse –so far without fatalities– have abounded during the last semester, with different degrees of confinement measures in place to address the health crisis.
In a similar way to what has happened with the Military Forces, involved in a chain of scandals ranging from illegal interceptions to rapes of indigenous girls, the image of the Police has fallen into opinion polls. In the most recent Gallup Pool measurement, the institution’s perception plummeted to 39 percent favorable image versus 57 percent unfavorable image. “Something is not working in the training of the military forces and the national police,” outgoing Ombudsman Carlos Negret told this newspaper in July.
