Three police officers were murdered early Saturday morning in a Mapuche area in southern Chile, victims of an ambush on the day the anniversary of the police institution was commemorated, in the worst attack suffered by law enforcement forces in the region in recent history. area, which until now no group has claimed.
“This morning we received the serious and painful news of an attack in the province of Arauco in which three police officers were murdered,” President Gabriel Boric, who traveled to the area with a large delegation of authorities, reported on his X account. .
Carabineros de Chile has confirmed that the deceased are First Sergeant Carlos Cisterna Navarro, First Corporal Sergio Arévalo Lobos and First Corporal Misael Vidal Cid.
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The police officers were found burned inside a police patrol on a route in the town of Cañete, near the city of Concepción, about 500 kilometers south of Santiago.
The three were patrolling in the community of Cañete, Arauco province, Biobío region, when they got into a shootout with unknown attackers who, after killing the agents, proceeded to set their vehicle on fire with them inside.
The area is under military guard due to the arson attacks that have occurred there, mostly attributed to radical Mapuche groups, the largest Chilean ethnic group, which demands the restitution of ancestral lands.
The attack occurred on the day that the Carabineros, the Chilean militarized police, celebrated its 97th anniversary.
“I have no record in my history of 38 years of service, of the death of a police officer, and not only one, but three cruelly murdered, on the day of our anniversary. This was not coincidental, it was not random,” said the general director of Carabineros, Ricardo Yáñez. It was, in fact, the most brutal attack suffered by that force.
Commemorative activities across Chile were canceled following the murders and President Boric declared three days of official mourning.
The attack took place the same week that the Justice Department declared Héctor Llaitul, leader of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), one of the groups that has claimed arson attacks in the area. Another group is the Mapuche Lavkenche Resistance (RML).
Llaitul risks up to 25 years in prison for these crimes, in a sentence that Justice will announce on May 7.
“Terrible crime.” According to what the Minister of the Interior and Security, Carolina Tohá, told the press, “the Firefighters received a notice of a vehicle on fire and, when they arrived at the scene, they discovered that it was a Carabineros patrol.”
According to the prosecutor leading the investigation, Danilo Ramos, the vehicle in which the police were traveling moved to that area after three calls to 133, the emergency telephone number, made by unknown persons, who were asking for help because they were alleged victims of an assault. .
The police were mobilized in an armored patrol, since all police vehicles operating in that area have security to face possible attacks. But when they arrived they received a burst of shotgun fire and one of the ammunition pierced the engine.
According to the preliminary investigation, the uniformed officers got out to try to repel the ambush, but the shooting continued until the three – according to sources in the case – fell dead on the road. The attackers would have then stacked the bodies in the vehicle’s pickup truck, then sprinkled benzine and lit them on fire, wrote the newspaper La Tercera.
“Inside the vehicle, the Firefighters discovered the three deceased officials, in this burned condition,” said Minister Tohá, who also traveled to the area.
“I assure Chileans that there will be no impunity and that we will find the whereabouts of the perpetrators of this terrible crime,” said Boric, who described the perpetrators of this triple murder as “terrorists.”
“After an emergency meeting with ministers Carolina Tohá, Maya Fernández, undersecretaries Manuel Monsalve and Ricardo Montero, and the presidential delegate of Biobío, Daniela Dresdner; “We coordinate immediate actions to respond to this cowardly attack,” Boric said.
Together with the president, in a sign of institutional unity, the commanders of the Army, Air Force and Navy, as well as parliamentarians, and the president of the Supreme Court traveled to the city of Concepción.
“There are no fissures here; “We are a single force of the State of Chile, of Chilean society against those criminals, against those terrorists who have committed this murder that mourns the entire country,” added the president.
Upon arriving in Concepción, Boric reported that he does not rule out convening the National Security Council (Cosena), the highest advisory body in these matters, and the possibility of decreeing a state of siege.
“As president of the republic, I do not rule out any of the legal tools that are at our disposal. We are going to make decisions accordingly, with a cool head, with the information given to us by the police together, and working in a coordinated manner with all the powers of the State. Today in Chile there is heartbreak, there is sadness, there is anger. We have it too and we know that the Carabineros institution and, particularly the families of those who have been brutally murdered, have immeasurable pain,” he asserted.
In Santiago, meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered near the presidential palace of La Moneda, to protest the murder of the three police officers.
Almost two years ago, Boric decreed the militarization of the province of Arauco, along with other towns in the neighboring region of Araucanía, in an attempt to contain the frequent arson attacks registered there, especially against the activities of the forestry industry.
This week the government had celebrated the reduction by half of violent actions compared to the beginning of Boric’s administration, in March 2022. Some radical Mapuche communities are demanding the restitution of lands that they consider theirs due to ancestral rights. Gangs dedicated to wood theft have also been disrupted in the area.
Gabriel Gaspar, former vice minister of Defense, told PERFIL that “the reprehensible murder of three police officers shows that it is necessary to reexamine the security strategy adopted for the so-called Southern Macro Zones.
“The presence of the highest authorities in the country at this time in the southern zone will allow them to listen to the community and those in charge of law enforcement. In practice, it is possible to transform this visit into a National Security Council on the ground, which analyzes why the adopted strategy has not worked.”
