Public buildings set ablaze in Chile after police shooting
SANTIAGO, Chile — Demonstrators angered by the fatal police shooting of a popular street juggler set several public buildings ablaze in southern Chile on Friday night, leaving a city of almost 34,000 people practically without public services.
Ten public offices in the city of Panguipulli burned to the ground, including the municipal government building, the post office, the civil registry, a local court and a water management company, authorities said.
A police officer has been detained in the shooting, the head of the regional homicide
unit, Rodrigo Morales, said Saturday, adding that investigators were gathering video evidence from witnesses. The officer was not publicly identified and did not appear Saturday at a court hearing, where he was represented by a lawyer.
The shooting took place after the juggler, identified as Francisco Martínez, did not comply with a police officer’s request to provide identification as he performed at a busy intersection in the center of Panguipulli, witnesses said.
An argument followed, during which the officer pulled out his gun and fired at least two shots at Martínez’s feet, witnesses told reporters. Videos taken by witnesses show the juggler jumping to avoid the shots, then running toward the officer with his props in the air. The officer then shot him in the chest, witnesses said, and he died at the scene.
Police officers described the shooting as an act of self-defense, saying Martínez was threatening the officer with a machetelike weapon. Witnesses interviewed by news media Friday night said it was a tin sword, a prop for his juggling show.
In interviews with several media outlets, Panguipulli’s mayor, Rodrigo Valdivia, described Martínez, 25, as a quiet, respectful young man who was well known in town because he had lived on the streets on and off for several years, performing for its many tourists and using the municipal shelter and food kitchen during the winter.
Valdivia, in a hastily called news conference by the destroyed municipal building, placed responsibility on the police for the shooting, saying the officer and his partner had not followed protocol in a routine ID check.
Witnesses also faulted them for not trying to help Martínez as he lay dying. A nurse standing near the shooting was the first to assist him until an ambulance arrived.