They identify a member of ESMAD who drew a knife in the middle of a demonstration

A series of images have gone viral on social networks and have caused great outrage, it is a member of ESMAD, who in the middle of a demonstration and in clashes with the marchers, takes out a knife from a uniform and presses it, apparently, against the Protestants who come to him.

The fact that it would have occurred in the midst of the protests that were taking place in the Villagorgona sector in Cali.

It was Councilor Diego Cancino who denounced the incident through his social networks and asked the corresponding entities to initiate an investigation into why agents are carrying sharps in the demonstrations.

An image that shows everything that is wrong with @PoliciaColombia and ESMAD. A man prepares to attack the protesters with a knife. All protocols and human rights are violated: life is endangered. And what do you think of this image?”, he wrote through his social networks.

Subsequently, he denounced the person responsible for the incident with the identification number: “045096 is the ESMAD number that today in Valle del Cauca pulled out a knife and threatened protesters. It is not the first time that the public force has used this weapon, in Usme we denounced how a journalist was stabbed on June 2 by a policeman. What will @DefensoriaCol and @PGN_COL do?”

Due to the seriousness of the matter and the rejection in social networks, the commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cali, was obliged to pronounce on the matter, through his Twitter account he stated that “the uniformed man who appears in social network publications in #Villagorgona – Candelaria has been identified as wearing what appears to be a sharp item”.

It should be remembered that in previous days, a photographer from Bogotá, denounced that in one of the coverings of the protests in the town of Suba, he was stabbed with a knife by a member of the squad, reported Inti Asprilla, one of the representatives to the Chamber for Bogotá, who noted that citizens reported that a police officer allegedly attacked a photographer with a knife who was covering the demonstrations in Usme, in the south of the city.

Regarding this fact, the Metropolitan Police of Bogotá reported that it is in the process of investigation to clarify the motives and if the aggressor was really an official of that institution.

By means of a car and in the face of repeated complaints of excessive use of force by members of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad, Esmad, the Superior Court of Bogotá decided to open a process of contempt incident against the Ministry of Defense, the National Police and the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá, among other agents of the State.

The announcement responds to a tutelage filed by two citizens who argue that they cannot attend the protests because of the violence that is unleashed in them.

They are Yuliana Judith Anaya Doria and Alba Luz Ruiz Ríos, who in their petition to said court indicate that, “it is not possible for us to attend the peaceful demonstrations scheduled within the framework of the National Strike scheduled as of April 28, 2021 and hereinafter, on the understanding (of) that interventions with disproportionate use of force, in addition to the use of firearms and tear gas carried out by the public force (National Police and the Esmad anti-riot unit), unleashing violent acts that generate situations of insecurity, anxiety, generalized panic, putting even life itself at risk, as mentioned above, which extends to different cities of the country among those Cali, Medellín and Bogotá”.

In that order of ideas, the two women state, “They are limiting or restricting fundamental rights such as the right to life, the right to freedom of expression, the right of movement, the right to protest and to human dignity”.

The foregoing, in turn, means that the Colombian authorities are not complying with the ruling issued by the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice in September 2020, which orders the adoption of a statute of reaction, use and verification of the legitimate force of the State, and protection of the right to peaceful citizen protest, to minimize possible abuses of authority by the public force.