Elmer Fernandez’s killing comes after an emergency was declared in February to curb a surge in jail violence.
The brand new director of certainly one of Colombia’s largest prisons has been shot useless, the authorities stated, after receiving threats towards him and his household final week, prompting the federal government to order a large operation within the capital to seek out the assailants.
Elmer Fernandez’s killing in Bogota on Thursday comes after the federal government declared a “jail emergency” in February amid a surge in circumstances of jail riots, homicides, assaults and threats towards jail personnel in a number of jails throughout the nation.
The previous police colonel, and present director of Bogota’s La Modelo jail was returning dwelling from work when a bike approached his automobile and gunmen opened fireplace. He was killed with a single shot to the pinnacle as he sat within the passenger seat.
Justice Minister Nestor Osuna condemned the killing and stated a significant police operation was below technique to catch the assailants.
“I wish to specific all my solidarity and that of the federal government and your complete nation to the household of Colonel Fernandez,” he stated.
Fernandez, who began working the ability on April 4, had no safety escort or an armoured automotive.
He had acquired a number of written dying threats after he started to implement new authorities insurance policies to wash up the jail and crack down on prison exercise, together with unannounced searches of inmates and their cells.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro stated Fernandez was “vilely murdered”, in a submit on X.
“Inform the murderers that they don’t seem to be going to intimidate us and that we are going to transfer ahead regardless of their assaults and insolence,” he stated after an emergency safety assembly.
Basic William Salamanca, the pinnacle of Colombia’s nationwide police, ordered a lockdown in Bogota to seek out the suspects.
“To the murderers, I wish to say that you’ll not scare us, and we are going to go ahead regardless of your assaults,” he instructed reporters.
Organised jail gangs
A few of Colombia’s most infamous criminals are held at La Modelo. In 2020, a minimum of 23 individuals had been killed within the facility after a riot throughout which inmates had been “shot to dying deliberately”.
In 2022, 49 individuals had been killed and dozens had been injured in a hearth throughout an obvious riot in a jail within the southwestern Colombian metropolis of Tulua.
The authorities say organised gangs function from contained in the nation’s overcrowded penitentiaries, smuggling medication and working extortion rackets.
Jorge Restrepo, a political analyst and professor at Javeriana College in Bogota, instructed Al Jazeera that prison gangs are properly related throughout the nation and their energy is way reaching.
“It’s more than likely it was carried out by organised teams,” he stated of Fernandez’s homicide.
Fernandez was main an operation to separate gang members.
Colombia’s jail authority warned that different officers are in danger. Because the starting of the yr, 5 guards have been killed and 6 have survived makes an attempt on their lives.
A minimum of 550 officers have acquired dying threats previously two years, in accordance with the federal government.
Daniel Gutierrez, director of the Nationwide Penitentiary and Jail Institute, admitted that Fernandez was not supplied an armoured automobile “as a result of we don’t have the capability”, including that “actually, no director has such safety”.
