A Venezuelan military police sergeant shot dead a protester who was attacking the perimeter of an air base on Thursday, the Venezuelan Ministry of the Interior said, bringing renewed scrutiny of the force used to control riots that have killed at least 76 people.
At least two soldiers shot long firearms through the fence from a distance of just a few meters at protesters who were throwing rocks, television footage showed.
One man collapsed to the ground and was carried off by other protesters.
Photo: Reuters
Paramedics took at least two other injured people to a hospital, a witness said.
“The sergeant used an unauthorized weapon to repel the attack, causing the death of one of assailants,” Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Nestor Reverol said on Twitter.
He said the air force police sergeant faced legal proceedings.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets over the past few months to protest against a clampdown on the opposition, shortages of food and medicine, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to overhaul the constitution.
The reaction of the security forces to provocation at marches has been in the spotlight since images showed a national guard member pointing a pistol at demonstrators on Monday, prompting the opposition to intensify its street campaign.
The protesters who attacked the fence outside La Carlota air base in the wealthy east of Caracas had earlier burned a truck and a motorbike when security forces firing rubber bullets broke up a march destined for the Venezuelan attorney general’s office.
David Jose Vallenilla, 22, died after arriving at a hospital in the Chacao municipality where the protest happened.
A small group of protesters throwing Molotov cocktails from behind flimsy homemade shields cheered when powerful fireworks used as weapons landed near troops in the air base.
They managed to rip down a section of the fence surrounding the base, despite volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets.
At least one soldier aimed a shotgun through the fence, photographs showed.
Vallenilla had been killed by the national guard firing rubber bullets at point-blank range, Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said.
Olivares, whose arm was wounded in the protest, yesterday called for sit-ins on highways and protests at military bases today.
Vallenilla suffered wounds to the lungs and heart, a doctor who attended him told reporters.
The attorney general’s office said he was shot three times.
Maduro says the violence is part of a foreign-led plot to overthrow his government and criticizes the opposition for fanning it, but authorities have taken action against three national guard sergeants accused of killing a boy on Monday.
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