2023-05-10 10:30:17
The Public Ministry requested a sentence of 5 years and one day in jail for the Carabineros official who, in the framework of a police procedure in 2020, shot two minors from a collaborating residence of the extinct National Service for Minors (Sename). in Talcahuano.
Two and a half years after the events occurred, the prosecuting body closed the investigation and presented before the Talcahuano Guarantee Court the accusation in which the police force is charged with the crime of unlawful coercion and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against two minors.
In the letter -entered by Nelson Vigueras Camaño, preferred prosecutor for Human Rights cases in the Bío Bío region- the Public Ministry reconstructs step by step the actions of the official, who -according to the persecutor- “abuses his functions” to commit the illicit ones
By bike to Sename
On the afternoon of November 18 of that year, the Carlos Macera de Talcahuano Residential Center, which depended on the City of the Child Foundationbecame the focus of national news: two young people had ended up shot in the midst of confusing incidents inside the compound.
According to the information contained in the judicial file, it all began at about 4:15 p.m., when the then second sergeant of the uniformed police, John Mograve Villegas, answered a call from the Communications Center (Cenco).
At first it did not seem like a major procedure. Police presence was requested from the residence to help SAMU personnel in the containment of a decompensated minor that, according to the indictment, he suffered from “intellectual disability and psychomotor agitation.”
He immediately went to the place. He did it aboard an institutional bicycle and accompanied by a colleague who, like him, belonged to the staff of the Second Police Station of Talcahuano.
Warning
After 4:30 p.m., the uniformed man and his co-worker arrived at the home. According to the investigation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the then 39-year-old carabinero immediately “got involved in a verbal exchange” with a minor.
According to the document, Mograve let those present know that he “didn’t care if they were ‘little bastards'” and that “if they hit him, he would hit them back.”
The sergeant carried out his warning. This is evident in the presentation that the Public Ministry made before the court:
“Subsequently, the defendant Mograve Villegas clashed with the FAEC teenager (then 17 years old) both falling to the ground and rolling together down an existing slope in the place, after which other minors residing in the aforementioned Home followed, throwing stones and sticks at himwhereupon the defendant runs inside the previously singled-out enclosure and fires a shot into the air with his service weapon.”
Minors of the then home of Sename Carlos Macera de Talcahuano
shot in the legs
It was not going to be the only time that Sergeant Mograve would use the institutional 9-millimeter Taurus that he was in charge of that afternoon.
After that first incident, the uniformed man moved to another sector of the property, being followed by some of the minor users of the state protection system. Among them, a minor under the age of 14 with the initials FAJS and the adolescent who had previously participated in the attempt. Both would end up with gunshot wounds.
“In such a scenario, the defendant, abusing his functions, infringing the regulations on the Principles and Rules of the use of Force, particularly in the case of minor victims under the protection of the State of Chile at the residence of an organization dependent on the Sename network (…) he applied illegitimate pressures against the two minor victims, again using his service weapon,” says prosecutor Vigueras.
The result? The adolescent FAEC (same from the fight with blows) He ended up with a gunshot wound to his thigh, which, if not for timely medical intervention, could have cost him his leg.. For his part, the 14-year-old minor with the initials FAJS was hit by a bullet just below his right knee.
5 years and one day
After almost two and a half years of investigation, dozens of interviews with witnesses and taking statements, the Public Ministry came to the conviction that the events that occurred that November afternoon at the Carlos Macera residence constitute two crimes of “illegitimate coercion and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against minors”. One resulting in serious injury and one resulting in less serious injury.
In effect, the organization asked the court to impose a single penalty of five years and one day in prison for the minimum degree, in addition to the legal accessories and costs of the case.
To do this, he offered testimonial evidence for the trial to 74 witnesses. Among them several police officers and the two victims of the crime. In addition to this, it included dozens of expert, documentary and material evidence.
In favor of the defendant, the prosecution itself pointed out, there is the mitigation of previous irreproachable conduct. The oral trial preparation hearing is set for June 9, 2023.
In the same case, the same police force held the status of victim of the crime of mistreatment of work against Carabineros. However, the Public Ministry informed the decision not to persevere in that edge. The latter, “because during the investigation carried out, sufficient information has not been gathered to found an accusation regarding the crime.”
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