Dios y patria: relatos de infamia

Abstract

The National Police of Colombia has the fundamental obligation to serve society, protect lives and property; defend the innocent from deceit, the weak from oppression and intimidation; use peace against violence and disorder and respect the constitutional rights of freedom, equality and justice of all men, as specified in article eleven of its ethical system, which was reformed in 2006 with the purpose of raising the institution's levels of transparency.

However, in recent decades, the police institution has been the target of investigations into irregularities in its actions, given that the National Police has been involved in cases of corruption, bribery, links with illegal groups and abuse of authority towards civil society. Currently, there are cases of police abuse that correspond to the excessive use of force in contexts of social protest and routine procedures, such as requests for searches that have not been resolved by the judicial system, to which the victims are still waiting for a response.

This project analyzes the political and socio-cultural factors of the abuse of authority by the National Police in four specific cases. The first corresponds to the death of Nicolás Neira, a young ninth grade student, who in 2005 was at a social protest and was hit in the back of the head by tear gas, which took his life. Following this is the struggle of the Becerra Lizarazo family, who since 2011 have been seeking justice for the murder of their son, Diego Felipe Becerra, who was a prominent graffiti artist in the town of Suba and was killed in the back by patrolman Wilmer Alarcón, who today is a fugitive from justice.

Thirdly, there is the fateful case of Juan David Guardo Martínez, a 17 year old young man who was killed by the then Police Colonel in charge of the island of San Andres in 2011, Gustavo Chavarro Moreno, with the use of projectiles that violate rule 77 of International Humanitarian. Law, which prohibits the use of bullets that expand or are easily crushed in the human body, such as the expansive ammunition, wrongly called "dum dum". Finally, the case of Cristian Hurtado will be analyzed, one of the fatal victims of the demonstrations of September 9, 2020, in the municipality of Soacha, due to a gunshot that hit his face, leaving his girlfriend Adriana Vanegas and his stepdaughter in a struggle to clarify the confusing facts of his death.

The research seeks, from the testimonial narratives of the above cases, to evidence the possible institutional irregularities that are contrary to the Human Rights Regulations and Practice for the Police. It also intends to reveal the judicial anomalies that occurred in each of the exposed cases, since the research presumes that the State control organs obstruct the investigations of police abuse and avoid the repercussions of their abuse in front of the citizens.