General Penilla: We do not need authorization for the use of weapons

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Faced with the murders and multiple injuries from firearms presented in recent days, especially in Bogotá, General Hoover Penilla, current coordinator for Covid-19 before the Presidency responded to the questions that have been generated by an apparent abuse of authority in these cases.

Penilla said, the police do not need someone to order us to use weapons or elements of the service, we analyze the circumstances and accordingly we act and respond individually. That's what we're here for.

The general affirmed that the policemen load their endowment weapons at the time of rendering their service and this is determined at the national and international level, “these policemen were not controlling a march, they did not go into service that day to control a march at a demonstration, they went out to provide a service in the immediate care centers and went with their elements of the service.

In addition, it blames criminal hands that would be behind social networks to manipulate and create lies about the institution to divert the real issue.

He said, unfortunately everything that has happened, but the police officers who are at this moment throughout the country also need you, the Colombian society, to support us. We answer for the bad things we do, we stand up, but we also need you to be with us. And if at a certain moment, the investigations determine that those weapons that the constitution gives us were used to protect third parties and also protect ourselves, we will also respond, here no one is being disobeyed.

For his part, the director in charge of the Bogotá police, General Gustavo Moreno, reiterated that the institution did not give orders to shoot.