Investigations continue around the confusing incident that occurred during the day this Saturday, which ended with a Mapuche community member shot in the Lican Ray sector, Araucania region. During the night, the body Eloy Alarcon Manquepan (33) He was waiting to be transferred from the Villarrica Hospital to the offices of the Legal Medical Service (SML) so that the required autopsy can be carried out.
It should be noted that the events took place in the Liumalla sector, kilometer 10 inland, where the victim was together with other community members -presumably- inside an agricultural property, which would have caused the owner fired a revolver, hitting one of the projectiles in the affected.
Precisely, the author of the shots was identified as Mauricio Briceno Medina (51), who according to his version -narrated by police personnel-, “three neighbors arrived, one of them with an ax and the others with machetes, who began to threaten him. At that time, according to his version, the person who had the ax tried to attack himfor which he shot with a revolver of his own, wounding him in the chest”.
However, there would be conflicting versions of eyewitnesses to the crime, who claim that Briceño would not have acted in legitimate defense, and that there was also allegedly an invasion of the attacker’s property.
It is the statement of María Manquepan, aunt of the community member victim who recounted through a video: “we were walking, entering the compound of this man, we did not even know his name and we heard the noise of a truck. I told him: Ulysses here he comes, and he said: ah, it’s good that he’s here. The truck approaches, he opens the door and shoots it at point-blank range. He fell into a ditch, we ran to help him, and he (Briceño) threatened me with a gun. She told me: she gets out of there, you old m…, I’m going to kill you too. Between falling and stopping, I couldn’t help my nephew, and I started”.
At the same time, he added that: “my sister was left lying on top of her son, and he (Briceño) also told her: she gets out of there old ass… I’m going to kill you too. My sister told him: kill me no more. I started and ran upstairs and yelled at my other nephew that his brother was wounded, Byron ran to help him and also threatened him with the gun. He fired two shots into the air at me, and whoever came to help my nephew threatened him with a pistol and shot into the air”.
In this regard, the woman asserted that “we never enter his territory. We got to the gate when he was getting into his truck. He did not give any access to talk. Nothing, he pulled out the gun and shot my nephew at close range. He does not live there, he has a caretaker, and that day he was surely arriving to leave his caretaker there in the morning like 10. We want justice to be done and this message to be spread, because this is the truth.”
Regarding the proceedings that are taking place, the Villarrica prosecutor, Charles Contreras, explained later that “what the Public Ministry is investigating is a possible unlawful homicide, an event that would have occurred today in the morning hours, where a person would have died as a result of the impact of a bullet in the chest area, in the Villarrica commune. Throughout the day, various proceedings were being carried out, both at the site of the event and at the police unit, in order to clarify the greatest number of edges or antecedents of this case.
Asked if the claim for land is within these edges, which should be investigated in the next few hours by Carabineros in order to formalize charges against the attacker, the persecutor stressed that “It is one of the edges that is investigated, because there are also situations of neighborhood conflicts that could have triggered this fact. For this reason, they are all investigative edges that are going to work with police personnel, in order to have more clarity about the background between now and tomorrow for the detention control hearing.”
It should be noted that Briceño – who was apprehended and this Sunday will have to appear at a detention control hearing – had protective measures from the Carabineros, consisting of periodic rounds, after receiving a complaint on May 5 for an alleged crime of threats against him.