Caracas Chronicles

Last friday, a SEBIN officer died in a showdown with Polichacao in the Prados del Este Highway.

(SEBIN is the Venezuelan government intelligence service, while Polichacao is the municipal police force of opposition-controlled Chacao municipality)

Polichacao claims it was responding to a kidnapping. SEBIN says Polichacao just opened fire without warning and that they were escorting a detainee to jail after he had been caught red handed in the student protests in Altamira.

Rodriguez Torres is putting full blame on Polichacao.

He said, and I quote:

Polichacao acted “disproportionately, with disregard to the protocol…That’s called homicide”

This would be a classic case of he said, she said, except when, you know, you see the  security video that shows at least one of the detainees, David Urbina walking through Los Palos Grandes with grocery bags in his hands when he is intercepted by the Sebin officers and is kidnapped. (I’m pretty sure that’s not the definition of red-handed). Also, there was no warrant for his arrest.

Polichacao is actually alerted by the neighbors that a kidnapping is taking place. They try to halt the car, which almost runs the officer over. After that, a high speed chase ensued on the highway, that ended in a gunfight.

As of right now, the two “hostages” David Urbina and José A. Rivas are being detained in SEBIN’s headquarters. One Polichacao officer has been jailed as well. Given how the video tape shows the government is lying, we know whom to believe here.

Maybe one day they will write a book called: Se llamaba SEBIN.