“You shot my granddaughter!”: Police violence leaves dead in Venezuela

María Eugenia accuses a police officer of killing her 11-year-old niece in a Caracas neighborhood, while pointing her finger the hole left by the bullet in a window of his house.

The policeman says he saw “a shadow”, but “he shot the girl, directly at the girl”, says María Eugenia Segovia, 54, recalling the tragedy she experienced on November 13th.

His granddaughter, Yadimar, she was sleeping when the bullet hit her in the neck after breaking through one of the bars of the window grate and breaking the glass.

Reports of deaths at the hands of the authorities have multiplied in Venezuela. This was documented by the NGO Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), a reference in the absence of official data more than 700 dead at the hands of the police in the first half of the year.

María Eugenia says she confronted the officer and a companion who accompanied him.

“I went to him, stood in front of him and said: they shot the girl, you shot my niece!” she recalls. “They turned and ran away.”

At least five people have been arrested for this crime, according to the scientific police. “I have no confirmation that they are police officers,” said a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.

extrajudicial executions

Human rights organizations reported more than 4,000 extrajudicial killings in 2020 and 2021 in crime-fighting operations, which they considered extermination “state policy”.

In a climate of widespread impunity, cases such as that of Yadimar also occur, says the director of the OVV, Roberto Briceño León, in which there is “individual” responsibility of a policeman or a group of policemen, rather than superior orders.

Violence is “moving” from criminals to the police, says Briceño León, who warns that “in a large part of the country, the police have caused more victims and more deaths than the criminals themselves”.

Neighbors and relatives of the girl, who was studying in the sixth grade, say that the police searched a young man in the sector and that the relatives came out to file a complaint. The officials, who according to Segovia belonged to the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), called for “reinforcements” and they entered the street shooting according to his story.

Others claim the cops were drinking before the incident.

The girl’s relatives filed a complaint with the prosecutor. They are asking for justice and “more control” over the forces of order.

“We can’t be more afraid of them than of the street itself,” said Yuleimy Valencia, 34, the girl’s cousin.

The UN has expressed concern about police operations, while the prosecutor’s office defends itself against accusations of impunity, assuring that 358 security officials have been convicted of human rights violations.

The NGO Cofavic estimates that “98% of cases of human rights violations are not investigated”.

separation and pain

“Why did you leave Yadimar? Why did you leave, man? Fly high!” read one of the posters pasted on the walls of his house.

White balloons, nursery rhymes, flowers and white hand signs surrounded the little girl’s urn, which was fired upon by a crowd.

Yadimar was “charismatic, cheerful and joyful,” agree her grandmother and cousin. He was entrusted to the care of his grandmothers because her mother had gone to Peru to look for an emigrated sister and her father died nine years ago from a stray bullet in a shootout between criminals.

“My girl, they killed you just like your father!” cried the mother when she saw her daughter’s coffin, after a round trip of thousands of kilometers by land due to lack of money to pay for a flight.

“We still haven’t been able to figure it out. Why, if she was inside her house, did this situation arise?” asks Yadimar’s cousin.

Source: AFP

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