Prosecutor's Office cites hearing of Esmad patrolman who had incurred illegitimate use of force in demonstrations

Due to the alleged violation of the legal limits allowed for the control of riots during the social mobilizations of June 21, 2021, in which Jaime Alfonso Fandiño Ariza, who was hit by lactymogen gas in his chest, died, the Attorney General's Office summoned a public trial hearing to a patrolman of the National Police.

The Public Prosecutor's Office announced that the uniformed, who is part of the first section of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron (Esmad) No. 25, had violated the protocols and measures established in the procedures for handling demonstrations, a conduct that may have resulted in non-compliance with the rules on the legal use of the legitimate force.

“The supervisory body recalled that the principles of proportionality, legality, necessity, must be applied when force is used, in the handling of weapons, elements, devices and in general for the control of riots and demonstrations,” said the Attorney General's Office in this case, adding to dozens of allegations of police brutality in half of the social outbreak of the previous year.

Likewise, the Second District Attorney's Office of Bogotá provisionally described the fault of the member of Esmad as very serious as a matter of malice, which is why it ordered the file to be sent to the Delegate Prosecutor's Office for Disciplinary Court.

The Personería de Bogotá revealed last June that Jaime Alonso Fandiño Ariza, 32, who would be in the mobilizations against the National Government in the town of Usme south of the capital, was treated at CAPS Santa Librada, who was admitted without vital signs with “trauma to the coastal region” due to traumatic weapons.

According to information recorded in the institution's medical record, the “patient who was taken by medical mission team”, according to medical mission personnel and transferred from the demonstrations area, died on June 21, 2021, adding to the other six fatalities in the first 60 days of the mobilizations that took place recorded throughout the national territory.

Last June, the Attorney General's Office announced that it opened a preliminary investigation against members of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron (Esmad) to investigate their alleged responsibility in the deaths of Cristian David Castillo and Jaime Alonso Fandiño, two citizens who died in Bogotá this week in the towns of Suba and Use me during social demonstrations.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, it would seek to collect all the necessary evidentiary material such as videos, images, social media posts, media reports, among others, that show irregularities in the protocols established by the security forces in the clashes that took place this week.

“When the list of police personnel that made up the different sections of the Esmad and the available force that was on duty on 21 June 2021 arrives, in the vicinity of the site called Yomasa (Usme), located in the south of the city of Bogotá, there will also be a copy of the service minutes of the uniformed personnel who were in that place, indicating square or device and procedure carried out and a copy of the records of instruction to staff on respect for human rights, compliance with protocols”, reads one of the paragraphs of the document issued by the institution.

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