During the evening of Thursday, July 28, two Santiago Municipality Citizen Safety guard posts were attacked.
The first attack happened at around 10 p.m., when masked perpetrators threw Molotov cocktails at a guard post located at the intersection of Calle Erasmo Escala and Calle Maipú. The resulting fire partially damaged the exterior, and the municipal guard stationed there sustained minor injuries after cutting himself while exiting through the window.
The second attack took place 20 minutes later, just meters from the first, at another Citizen Safety guard post located at the intersection of Calle Martínez de Rosas and Calle Maturana. There, the masked perpetrators forcibly removed the municipal guard before dousing the guard post with gasoline and pelting it with Molotov cocktails. The resulting fire completely destroyed the guard post.
Carabineros and Investigative Police (PDI) “intelligence” agents arrived at the scene of both incidents to investigate in an attempt to determine the perpetrators’ identities. Prosecutor Humberto Vásquez is leading the investigation, and he used the press to call on citizens to collaborate with the authorities’ information gathering, especially if any video recordings of the attacks exist.
Also present was Santiago mayor Pablo Zalaquett. The extreme rightist classified the incidents as anarchist attacks, adding that “those responsible will rot in prison” as an example to anyone else who dares to subvert authority.
The following text was found on leaflets at the sites of both attacks:
REVENGE ATTACK
We condemn and avenge the beating of an unnamed comrade by Citizen Safety during the June 23 march.
We have witnessed how Citizen Safety, in complicity with the Carabineros, harasses and persecutes street vendors.
These municipal functionaries have been transformed into Zalaquett’s police, and since they are police, we will attack them as such.
No aggression will go unanswered.
Taken from This Is Our Job: http://thisisourjob.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/two-citizen-safety-guard-posts-torched-in-santiago-chile/
