FABIOLA CAMPILLAI: LOSS OF SIGHT AND SENSE OF SMELL AND TASTE

EYES ON CHILE: POLICE VIOLENCE AND COMMAND

Tear gas deployed by National Police officers at the Gustavo Fricke Hospital in Viña del Mar, Chile, 9 November 2019.

The INDH filed complaints on behalf of 106 people who had suffered injuries from shots fired with a grenade launcher during the period 18 October 2019 to 30 November 2019. It also filed 34 complaints on behalf of victims who suffered injuries or harm as a result of the chemical agents used.¹⁶¹

The impact caused Fabiola to fall to the ground with her face covered in blood. Neighbours came to help her while her sister approached the police to ask them to take her to hospital.¹⁶² She says that, in response, a police officer threw a hand grenade directly at her feet.¹⁶³ According to the information in the investigation case file, National Police officials withdrew from the scene, throwing a smoke grenade and firing a final tear gas grenade from a grenade launcher aimed at the spot where Fabiola had fallen.

With the help of the neighbours, Fabiola was taken by car to the San Bernardo Parish Hospital, from where she was transferred to the Barros Luco Hospital and then to the Work Safety Institute (Instituto de Seguridad del Trabajo IST) because the injury occurred on the way to work.

Her IST admission report stated: “Referred to the Barros Luco Hospital, which records: small bifrontobasal haemorrhagic contusions, no compressive effect and no surgery indicated; polytrauma; emerging trauma to the head; facial fracture: Lefort II fracture, nasal fracture, fracture of the eye socket, bilateral eye injuries; multiple bilateral eyelid wounds, compromised at the edges; loss of tissue substance in the nasal and orbital region; exposed and depressed comminuted naso-orbital fracture; bilateral ocular flare; haemorrhagic paramedian frontal nasal contusion; post-traumatic bifrontal subarachnoid haemorrhage; bilateral naso-fronto-ethmoid complex fracture with rupture of both eyeballs, which reaches the greater wing of both sphenoids; right trimalar fracture “.¹⁶⁴

Fabiola was hospitalized between 26 November 2019 and June 2020 and underwent two operations and multiple treatments.

She was temporarily discharged due to the pandemic, but will have to return to hospital for reconstructive surgery at least once. As a result of her injuries, Fabiola permanently lost her sight and her senses of smell and taste. She said that she is learning to live all over again.

Fabiola Campillai and the injuries caused by the impact of a tear-gas canister.

162 Statement made by Ana María Campillai to Amnesty International, dated 21 June 2020, and statement by Ana María Campillai before the Attorney General’s Office, dated 28 November 2019: “I went to the police asking for help and I told them: ’you dumb cops, since you fired this shit, help my sister, please, she’s bleeding’ and one of the officials, who didn’t have a shield...took the grenade he had in his other hand, pulled off the safety catch and threw it at my feet, it was a smoke grenade and it started to release smoke when he threw it.”

163 The lieutenant of the 14th San Bernardo Police Station stated on 11 February to the Attorney General’s Office that “in Fermín Vivaceta, the only thing I saw was a woman who was in that street going towards the police officials, not listening if something was said, at that moment he threw a bomb to reach her, taking precautions so that she would not be affected, and it passed her to the side”, p. 90 of the investigation case file.

164 Report of the Forensic Medical Service No. 723-20, Medical Physical Examination, Istanbul Protocol No. 61, Fabiola Andrea Campillai Rojas of 13 April 2020.

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EYES ON CHILE: POLICE VIOLENCE AND COMMAND

The Forensic Medical Service determined that the injuries were caused by “a blunt object, which hit her in the middle third of her face, more than 3 cm in diameter, with dimensions such that it produced the simultaneous rupture of both eyeballs, fractures of the floor of both eye sockets and of all nasal bones and the shock wave continued backwards and fractured the bones of the base of the skull, it also produces traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage in both frontal lobes of the brain. This object travelled along an oblique path from top to bottom on the face and from front to back and did so at high energy.” It adds that “the injuries would have been fatal if timely and effective medical aid had not been provided.”

Judicial investigation

Amnesty International had access to the investigation case file for the crime of causing very serious injuries to Fabiola.¹⁶⁶ Fabiola, the INDH, the State Defence Council (Consejo de Defensa del Estado, CDE) and the Municipality of San Bernardo also filed complaints for the same crime.

The Attorney General’s Office summoned 17 police officials to testify, most of them from the 14th San Bernardo Police Station (hereinafter 14th Police Station), along with some from the 62nd Police Station in the same commune. It seized the video of the Go Pro camera of the captain in charge of the operation, the weapons used by him and another captain, and ammunition from the police station for analysis by the Carabineros Forensics Department (Departamento de Criminalística de Carabineros de Chile, LABOCAR).

The video from the Go Pro camera, which was made public in July 2020, showed how events had unfolded. It showed that there was not a large number of protesters to disperse, that they did not pose a threat to the officers, and that after inappropriate and unjustified use of the grenade launcher, the officers left the scene, despite realizing that a woman had been injured by a tear-gas canister.

Despite the existence of this audiovisual record, the main officers involved in the incident, in their statements both before the Attorney General’s Office and in the internal National Police process, justified their intervention with smoke and gas bombs and denied having fired directly at Fabiola’s body,¹⁶⁷ and realizing that she had been injured.¹⁶⁸

On 5 March 2020, before the Attorney General’s Office, Captain M. of the 14th Police Station, who fired the third shot that hit Fabiola, repeated the events reported in the complaint and in the captain sub-commissioner’s statement on how the operation that culminated in the shooting unfolded.¹⁶⁹

However, Captain M. pointed out that he had been authorized to use gas-launcher carbines (grenade launchers) since December 2019, which implies that at the time when his shot hit Fabiola, he was not authorized to use them.¹⁷⁰

165 Istanbul Protocol Supplement No. 61-2020, Medical Legal Report No. 723-2020, dated 17 July 2020.

166 Case RUC 1910081966-3 of the San Bernardo District Court, investigation by the Western Metropolitan Attorney General’s Office, initiated in response to complaint record No. 882 of the 62nd Police Station of San Bernardo.

167 The captain sub-commissioner of the 14th San Bernardo Police Station testified before the Attorney General’s Office on 11 February 2020, stating that there were approximately 30 protesters present and that when they were approaching, he fired a first shot with the gas launcher, his lieutenant fired the second, and Captain M. the third. “unaware of its initial and final trajectory since I did not see it”, and then ordered the group to throw one more grenade to retreat. P.

92 et. seq., Volume III, investigation case file, Case RUC 1910061966-3 of the San Bernardo District Court.

168 “(...) observo que los manifestantes comienzan a acercarse, por lo que decido hacer uso de la carabina lanza gases que portaba, recuerdo que el teniente (de la 14a Comisaría de San Bernardo), (...) efectúa un segundo disparo con su carabina, (...) consecutivamente el capitán M realiza un tercer disparo con dirección a la calle Fermín Vivaceta, desconociendo su trayectoria inicial y final, ya que no lo vi, existiendo un cuarto o quinto disparo (...) para luego replegarnos y retirarnos del lugar antes de las 21.00 h.” [I saw the protesters were starting to come towards us, so I decided to use the carbine gas launcher that I was carrying, I remember that the lieutenant… fired a second shot with his carbine, then Captain M fired a third shot towards Fermín Vivaceta street, unaware of its initial or final trajectory because I didn’t see it, there being a fourth or fith shot… then we regrouped to withdraw from the scene before 21:00”. Later, he added that “estando ya al interior del vehículo, le comento al conductor que el capitán M. “se había piteado a alguien [lo había matado].”

[“when already inside the vehicle, I said to the driver that Capitan M had done for someone [had killed them]”. Statement by the deputy captain of the 14th San Bernardo Police Station, p. 92 et. seq., Volume III, investigation case file, Case RUC 1910061966-3 of the San Bernardo District Court.

169 The main difference is that the sub-commissioner speaks of 30 protesters, the captain identified as M. refers to 60 protesters.

170 He confirmed this in his statement, dated 27 November 2019, made in the context of the administrative process initiated by the National Police, p. 25 of the administrative process, Order No. 13467/2019/3 initiated on 29 November 2019.

Regarding the shots, he stated: “the captain (sub-commissioner) used the carbine gas launcher, later the lieutenant did also.”¹⁷¹ Then a fourth shot was fired (that is, after Fabiola had already been hit by the tear-gas canister), later they threw smoke bombs and, after they had already passed through the tunnel, “the lieutenant threw a last tear-gas canister at the same intersection.” He pointed out that he fired in a parabolic arc,¹⁷² and said that there could be no certainty that what caused the injury was a tear-gas canister “it could be any type of weapon, it could have been earlier or later. A huge stone or a hammer.”¹⁷³

Statements by other officials, the video from the Go Pro camera of the captain sub-commissioner of the 14th Police Station, two reports from the University of Chile regarding the nature of the projectile that caused the injuries to Fabiola, and from the Forensic Medical Legal Service which examined the projectile refute this claim and indicate that the blow is consistent with a projectile fired with a grenade launcher and that it was a single-shot rifle, which was aimed directly at Fabiola’s face.¹⁷⁴

Additionally, the lieutenant¹⁷⁵ stated that he had seen a group of people take someone into the passage and acknowledged that he threw another tear-gas canister into the area before leaving.¹⁷⁶

In addition to the statements of the officials, the Attorney General’s Office notes that, according to the information contained in the investigation case file, there was no demonstration in that location, the free movement of vehicles and pedestrians was not obstructed, and there was no risk to the lives of passers-by or the police at the scene, so the use of a gas grenade launcher was not justified.¹⁷⁷ Likewise, witnesses confirmed that the police officers shot directly at Fabiola and saw her fall wounded, at which point they continued firing tear gas and smoke bombs, then retreated without going to her aid.¹⁷⁸ On 28 August 2020, the Attorney General’s Office charged Captain M. as perpetrator of the crime of unlawful coercion causing very serious injuries to Fabiola Campillai.¹⁷⁹