Three families sue over deaths in alleged clash in La Barranquita, Santiago

Santiago.- Three of the five families of the victims of the incident in the La Barranquita sector, where five people died during an operation by the National Police, filed formal complaints with the Santiago prosecutor’s office, demanding that the case be clarified and responsibilities be established. Michelle Arias Navarro, sister of Carlos Enrique Guzmán Navarro, 40, stated that her relative was at Vladimir Valerio’s barbershop as a customer at the time of the shooting and denied that he belonged to a criminal gang, as the authorities have indicated. “Charlie was no criminal as the Police say. He leaves a 10-year-old girl orphaned,” he expressed with indignation, while asking for further investigations so that his death does not go unpunished. Similarly, Bernardo Peña, father of Edward Bernardo Peña Rodríguez, another of the deceased, denied his son’s links to criminal activities and assured that on that day he only went to the hairdresser to get a haircut, becoming a victim of what he described as an unjustified action.

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The relatives of the young barber José Vladimir Valerio Estévez also filed a complaint against the police officers, stating that he lost his life while working in his business, where the operation took place on Olímpica Avenue in La Barranquita. The incident, in which Elvis Antonio Martínez Rodríguez and Julio Alberto Gómez also died, remains under investigation, while social and judicial pressure increases to clarify what happened and determine if there were excesses in police action.