?A police massacre?: Colombian officers killed 11 during protests against police violence, report finds

Colombian police were responsible for the deaths of 11 protesters during anti-police protests that swept the capital in September 2020, according to a report published on Monday after an independent investigation backed by the mayor of Bogotá's office and the United Nations.

"It was a police massacre," wrote Carlos Negret, a former ombudsman of the South American country who led the investigation, in the scathing and lengthy report published on Monday. "A decisive political and operational leadership, based on rights, was needed at national and local levels to avoid this happening."

Protests swept Bogotá and the suburb of Soacha in September last year, after footage went viral that showed police officers pinning down and tasering a father of two who had been detained for breaking Covid restrictions. "Please, no more!," he can be heard begging in the clip. He died shortly later from injuries sustained in custody.

The incident was compared to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, footage of which also went viral and triggered widespread protests.

Ordoñez's death prompted protests which were met by a violent response by police officers who used "less-lethal" rounds, billy clubs and teargas while protesters set dozens of police kiosks ablaze across the city. Alongside 14 protesters killed - 11 of whom were killed by police - hundreds of demonstrators and officers were injured.

Most of the deaths occurred in poorer neighbourhoods of the city, leading investigators to conclude in Monday's report that "there exists a criminalization of poverty by the state forces, which unleashed authoritarian and illegal actions against residents of certain social sectors."

"The most representative and generalized practice during these days of protest was the illicit use of force on the part of members of the national police," the report found. "This investigation concludes that the national police openly abandoned the principles of proportionality."