In the last two weeks, four cases of confrontations between victims and perpetrators in theft situations revived two strong and very deep debates.
The first has to do with the limits that separate the legitimate defense of revenge or justice on their own. The second is the reflection of society on the dangers involved in the fact that it makes a career the idea that the best way to deal with crime is for civilians to start fighting it by their own means, leaving aside institutions.
The most media case has to do with the doctor who on January 30 killed three men who intercepted him on a pedestrian bridge, in the north of Bogotá, and he was attacked and wounded in an attempted robbery that ended with the death of the three criminals, after the doctor used a firearm to defend himself.
The second occurred on February 5, in Floridablanca, Santander, when a motorcycle criminal, with a history of theft, was going to assault a retired police officer who was armed. They exchanged shots and the assailant was injured and died hours later.
The third occurred on February 4 in Medellín, where Víctor Alonso Cartagena, an alleged robber, was mortally wounded by the owner of the establishment he intended to assault. And on February 2, in Manizales, the case of a neighbor from the Istanbul neighborhood who ended up beating with the life of a man who entered his house to steal was reported.
Between the lawful and the illicit
Although in each case the judges will evaluate the facts, in criminal matters there are at least three scenarios that could lead to establish when in a homicide there is legitimate defense and that it is not justice by own hand.
In the first place, there could be a legitimate defense, according to the criminal Camilo Burbano, when the person defending himself is facing a current attack, imminent and unjustified, that is, he is at risk. You can also act to defend another person, but under those premises.
The imminence or actuality of the attack is key because, otherwise, the case can be considered homicide or personal injury. The risk of those who defend themselves against someone who attacks them and threatens them with a weapon is not the same, to the situation of those who are threatened with a knife, their cell phone is removed, the thief flees and the affected person chases and shoots him. In the first case, the life of those who defend themselves is in danger. In the second, the danger has passed. And if there is no risk, recovering a phone does not justify taking a life.
This is explained because, according to the criminal Marlon Fernando Díaz, the right to defend – life, security or integrity – “must be equal or equivalent” to the other.
Another peculiarity is that the means used by those who defend themselves are proportional to the severity of the aggression, and that depends on the type of weapons, the number of aggressors, and the situation. Proportionality does not exist when ten neighbors capture a thief and, instead of taking him to the Police, lynch him. In that situation, according to Díaz, the neighbors would end up responding criminally for not respecting the rights of the captured to be judged by an authority.
A third scenario in which legitimate defense can be claimed is when someone invades private property.
The way to solve these evils is not with more armed societies. That creates more violence.
The way out is to strengthen
the institutions,
the social pact and effective justice
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Cases of homicide in self-defense have generated intense debates in social networks and public opinion in general, in which some argue that citizens should have more access to weapons in order to defend themselves against organized crime. Others even applaud openly that civilians end the lives of criminals.
“Organized neighbors. Ratero, if we grab you, we’re going to lynch you. We don’t call the police, ”says a sign that went viral in the last week. And regardless of whether it is authentic and of the moment, it shows a social climate that in the opinion of several experts is highly dangerous.
Jaime Zuluaga, sociologist and professor at the Externado University, says that believing that what works in these cases is justice on its own hand demonstrates a crisis in the legitimacy of institutions and distrust of the effectiveness of justice. Impunity in homicides today is 70 percent and, in thefts, 63 percent, according to figures from the Attorney General’s Office.
This adds, says Zuluaga, to the increasing levels of insecurity that make the citizen think that he is exposed to being a victim and must react.
A third element, Zuluaga points out, is the erosion of a fundamental principle of the modern rule of law, and that is to guarantee justice and peace, the State has a monopoly on arms – and, therefore, on the coercive means of justice. – to avoid the maximum that citizens have the possibility of resorting to revenge, justice by their own hands, to the law of the ‘eye for an eye’, which opens the door to abuse, disproportion, injustice and more violence.
Luis Adolfo Martínez, a research professor at the Catholic University of Pereira, notes that both impunity and internal conflict – which has shown violence as everyday – have led people to believe that they can solve their security problems with violence.
Martínez says that this leads to a breakdown of the social fabric. This is dangerous, he says, because celebrating justice on its own hand – relativizing the legal and the illegal – makes evident a serious setback in democracy and creates more violence. Therefore, adds Zuluaga, the solution to these social ills “are not more armed societies. The way out is to strengthen the institutional framework, the social pact, and have effective justice. ”
In the midst of these legal and social discussions, experts agree that there is a deception in which people should not fall: one thing is to defend themselves legitimately against an imminent threat, and another very different, to believe that defense through weapons It must be in the hands of the people and not of the State.
In Bogotá, freight is prohibited
Unlike countries like the United States, where the legal arms trade is free, in Colombia whoever wants to access one must process a permit, arguing very special elements that justify their bearing or possession.
So, 688,534 weapons are registered in the hands of citizens. And in cities like Bogotá, if you have a tenure permit, its bearing is prohibited for eight years.
JUSTICE
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