'They Did it on Purpose': Protester Crushed Between Police Jeeps Latest Victim of Months-Long Chilea

Published on
Saturday, December 21, 2019
by Common Dreams
'They Did it on Purpose': Protester Crushed Between Police Jeeps Latest Victim of Months-Long Chilean Crackdown on Dissent
The young man was seriously injured but is expected to survive.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer



Twenty-year-old Oscar Ignacio Pérez Cortéz was pinned between two police jeeps on Friday. He is expected to survive but sustained serious injuries. (Photo: Archivando Chile/Telegram)

The ongoing protest movement in Chile has had success—the country's constitution is expected to be rewritten as a concession from President Sebastien Pinera to demonstrators—but still faces a harsh crackdown from government security forces, who in a series of assaults Friday fired projectiles at crowds and crush one young man between two armored jeeps, causing him serious injury.

Twenty-year-old Oscar Ignacio Pérez Cortéz was pinned between two police jeeps—called by protesters zorrillos, or "skunks"—on Friday when one of the vehicles slammed the young man into the side of the other.

Footage from the attack shows outraged demonstrators attacking the zorrillos and tending to Pérez immediately after the assault.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/21/they-did-it-purpose-protester-crushed-between-police-jeeps-latest-victim-months-long