Violence decreases on the third day of protests against the police in Colombia

The intensity of the violence dropped on Friday in the third day of protests against police brutality in Colombia despite attempts at rioting in Bogotá and other cities where protesters again reported abuse by the police.

During the day, the director in charge of the Colombian police, General Gustavo Moreno, apologized for the aggressions that led to the death of Javier Ordonez, the 46-year-old man who was brutally reduced by two agents during his arrest in Bogotá early Wednesday morning.

The centre of the demonstrations was Bogota where the mob confronted the Police Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) in places like Portal Norte, El Centro and Villa Luz, where the two uniformed officers involved in Ordonez's death were working, which sparked off the street protests.

Precisely in Villa Luz, the protesters set fire for the third day in a row to the Immediate Action Command (CAI) of the Police while confronting the uniformed who tried to disperse the protest with tear gas.

On the ruins of several CAIs destroyed in the last 48 hours, the demonstrators improvised "cultural centres" and popular libraries.

One of these was in the La Gaitana neighbourhood in the populous town of Suba, where the protesters renamed the CAI the Yulieth Ramírez Cultural Centre, named after a psychology student who is about to turn 19 and whose family says she died when she was hit by a stray bullet when she went out to meet a friend because she was not taking part in the protests.

The facade of the infrastructure was painted with the young woman's face and phrases rejecting police violence, while people were putting one book on top of another and filled a table left over from the CAI with all kinds of works.

They did the same in the La Soledad neighbourhood, where they even played loud music and hung a picture of Ordóñez with his two children on one of the walls of the destroyed building, which was burnt down on the previous nights.

The commander in charge of the police said that "in the name of all the police officers of Colombia" he wanted to "ask the family of Mr. Javier Humberto Ordóñez Bermúdez for forgiveness".

"I am sorry for those actions that are currently under investigation, but according to what we have been dealing with, to what we all saw in the video, it is an action that is not typical of the police in Colombia," he said.

In this sense, the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, called for an act of reconciliation and forgiveness on Sunday to "rebuild trust among all of us, respecting the rights and duties of citizens and institutions, so that we can resume our purpose of living in a city of peace.

She also described what has happened in the last 48 hours as a "real massacre of young people" in the city, where since Wednesday 72 citizens have been injured by firearms in Bogotá, and said that "there was indiscriminate use of weapons by some members of the National Police" to control the demonstrations that turned violent.

"There were acts of vandalism as well. We recognize the just indignation and protest of the citizens, but of course there are also interests and criminal acts. Fifteen Transmilenio buses were not burned by exalted young people, nor were 45 CAI (Comandos de Atención Inmediata de la Policía) set on fire or vandalised out of indignation, but by criminal hands," he added.

He also pointed out that "119 complaints of police abuse have been documented in 48 hours," while the figure so far this year was 141.

The situation in Colombia has reached the international level, where various bodies and authorities have expressed their rejection of what has happened and are calling for investigations into police abuse.

"Any excessive use of violence by those responsible for protecting citizens must be promptly and thoroughly investigated," said the European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International (AI) called for an end to the "excessive use of force" by the police and deplored the "acts of torture" against Ordonez.

"We demand an immediate end to the excessive use of public force against demonstrators demanding justice for the death of lawyer Javier Ordóñez," said AI Director for the Americas, Érika Guevara Rosas, in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) stated that "the use of force by State security forces must follow the principles of legality, necessity, reasonableness and proportionality, placing the protection of the rights of all persons at the centre.