Event Summary
More than 2,200 days after Gustavo Gatica was shot and permanently blinded by a Carabineros officer during the 2019 social unrest in Chile, the judicial process reached a decisive moment with the issuance of a final verdict.
On 13 January 2026, in a ruling that has deeply polarized public opinion, the Fourth Oral Criminal Court of Santiago acquitted former lieutenant colonel Claudio Crespo of attempted homicide. While the court acknowledged that Crespo fired the shots that caused Gatica’s blindness, it concluded that he acted under “privileged self-defense,” as established by the Naín-Retamal Law (Law No. 21,560).
The judges determined that Gatica’s actions during the protest constituted “illegitimate and potentially lethal aggression,” thereby shifting legal responsibility away from the police officer and onto the civilian victim. According to the ruling, law enforcement personnel had allegedly exhausted less harmful means before resorting to the use of a shotgun, framing the use of force as proportionate and justified within the context of public disorder.
This decision marks a critical moment in the post-2019 accountability process, raising serious concerns regarding access to justice for victims of state violence and the standards applied to evaluate the use of force by security forces during social protests.