Gustavo Gatica lost his sight in 2019’s nationwide unrest but as the country prepares to swear in a far-right president the man who fired the rubber bullets has walked free
O
n the evening of 8 November 2019, Chile’s capital was gripped by protests amid a wave of nationwide unrest. While thousands demonstrated peacefully in Santiago’s Plaza Italia, violence broke out down a side street on the fringes of the square, where riot police with rifles battled protesters.
Among them was Gustavo Gatica, a 21-year-old psychology student at the University of Chile, who threw a stone towards the police and stooped to pick up another. The last thing he saw was a line of advancing officers in the shadow of a tower block.
As he straightened up, he was hit in the face by two rubber-coated bullets fired by Lt Col Claudio Crespo. After nearly two weeks of surgeries, doctors could not save Gatica’s eyesight.
