Police Brutality Unleashes New Wave of Protest in Chile

Chilean police (Carabineros) preliminary reports show that at least 20 people were arrested during the wave of protests that shakes the country since Friday when a policeman threw a 16-year-old boy off a bridge into a river during a peaceful demonstration.

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Over the weekend, hundreds of people crowded into the capital's Italia Square, renamed Dignity Square, holding signs that read 'He didn't fall, he was thrown'.

The people not only demanded justice for the young man, but they also urged the resignation of the Carabineros' director Mario Rozas, who has been questioned due to the systematic police violence that the country has experienced since October 2019.

The demonstrators gathered at the Dignity Square were repeatedly repressed by police forces with water and tear gas canisters.

Clashes intensified in other parts of the city, where groups of protesters burned barricades and knocked down several streetlight poles. A fire was reported on an electric public transport bus in the municipality of Ñuñoa, in Santiago.

The attack against the teenager won criticism from national and international organizations, and it generated a stir in the country, which will go to the polls for a constitutional plebiscite on Oct. 25.

According to the prosecutor's office, the Carabinero who pushed the young man has already been charged and arrested for attempted murder.