A 33-year-old non-commissioned officer of the Carabineros was murdered this morning in central Santiago de Chile while conducting a control operation. Police officer Daniel Palma was shot in the head while trying to control a car after its occupants had fired shots in this area of the capital, which has become one of the country’s main crime hotspots in recent years. The police officer’s death has once again shocked Chilean society as it marks the third murder of a police officer in the last 23 days, a fresh example of the public security crisis facing the South American country. After the crime, Gabriel Boric’s government, through Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, announced from La Moneda that it would intervene in 30 Chilean communities with higher crime rates.
The killing has provoked diverse political responses in a context heavily dominated by public concerns about crime, increased gang firepower and organized crime activities. President Boric leads a meeting with the police and state authorities in the government palace. A section of the political class, not just the opposition, is demanding a constitutional state of emergency from the executive in Santiago de Chile in view of the security crisis.
“Enough of them continuing to kill those who care for us, I’ve already said it. Today, a son is suffering, a suffering woman, a suffering institution,” said the Carabineros general director, Ricardo Yáñez, through tears. He did it from Posta Central, one of the main emergency hospitals in central Santiago, just before Palma’s death was confirmed at the care center. “We are facing a terrible crime. We hadn’t seen that before. The violence with which these people are acting will obviously force us to look for other strategies to be able to counter it,” assured the head of the institution.
Following last month’s second deadly attack on a police station, on March 26, public excitement motivated the political class to push through a series of anti-crime laws and the Naín Retamal Act to give the police more power to deter attacks give into the streets and increase the penalties for those who attack those in uniform. It was an intense discussion. Although there is a societal and political consensus on the need to strengthen the carabineros, the investigative police (PDI) and the gendarmerie, the left-wing coalition I Approve Dignity of President Boric in Parliament defied regulations that privileged a legitimate defense – the presumption – establishing the authorized use of his service weapon – for actions in connection with the exercise of police duties. “We do not agree that the burden of proof lies with the victim; We do not agree that this exemption from criminal liability extends to the armed forces; We do not agree to this number being used to maintain public order,” Communist MP Carmen Hertz said yesterday.
However, Congress this Wednesday approved the Naím Retamal Act, named in honor of two police officers murdered in 2020 and 2022. It was supported by the right and by Democratic Socialism, the moderate left bloc that supports Boric. For the interior minister, the law meets “the standards of a democratic police force.” It was Tohá himself who announced this Thursday that the law would be promulgated by the President later that day.
Tohá explained that the 30 municipalities, which concentrate a third of the national population and 50% of the most violent crimes, will be intervened. The plan was scheduled to start in May, but President Boric asked that it be brought forward after Corporal Palma’s death. The minister also stated that more and new resources will be available for carabineros. “We will set up investigation centers, particularly where there is an arms trade. We hope to be able to focus the prosecution on solving homicides and violent crimes, and for this the coordinated work that we already have with the prosecutor’s office will be strengthened and accelerated,” said the interior minister.
The murdered carabinero had nine years of service, belonged to the fourth police station in Santiago, which oversees the security of downtown Santiago, was married to a police officer, father of a four-year-old son and his wife is pregnant. At dawn Minister Tohá arrived at the main post office; the Minister of Justice Luis Cordero; the President’s Regional Delegate, Constanza Martínez; the Mayor of Santiago, Irací Hassler; and the general director of Carabineros.
Since early morning there have been raids on various houses in Santiago to find the whereabouts of the criminals, of whom there would be four. Among those identified would be a subject of Venezuelan nationality with a prior criminal record.