"This is Not a Country, This is a Mass Grave With a National Anthem": Anti-Police Protests Rock Colo

“This is Not a Country, This is a Mass Grave With a National Anthem”: Anti-Police Protests Rock Colombia
Post on: September 13, 2020 Rudy Ralph Martinez

Colombia has seen massive anti-police protests in several cities in recent days after the cops in Bogotá killed a father of two. The uprising continues the growing opposition to the neoliberal onslaught against the working class and poor people, but is also part of the global protests in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.



is name was Javier Humberto Ordóñez — the father of two young boys, ages 11 and 15, and one exam away from a law degree.

During the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 9, 46-year-old Ordóñez and his friends were drinking at an apartment in Bogotá, the capital city. Venturing out to get more alcohol, the men were confronted by police enforcing bans on public drinking and purchasing alcohol after 9 p.m during the pandemic. The ensuing altercation, captured on video, shows the police repeatedly submitting Ordóñez to shocks from a stun gun as he pleaded, “Please, no more, I’m suffocating.” Ordóñez was taken into police custody and died at a hospital several hours later.

“No one deserves to die this way,” said Eliana Garzón, his sister-in-law.

Within hours, massive protests erupted in several Colombian cities, including Medellín, Pereida, and Ibague — anti-police uprisings like those that have gripped the United States and much of the world this summer. The next afternoon, protesters in the Engativa neighborhood of west Bogotá destroyed the police precinct of the officers responsible for Ordóñez’s death. By early Thursday morning, dozens of police stations had been set on fire or vandalized. Some burnt police precincts have been repurposed into places for communities to gather, with makeshift libraries (like the “Biblioteca Popular” in Soledad), DJs spinning records, and communal discussions.

More:
https://www.leftvoice.org/this-is-not-a-country-this-is-a-mass-grave-with-a-national-anthem-anti-police-protests-rock-colombia