Chile police chief resigns after officers shoot adolescents

Chile's police chief resigned Thursday after officers shot two minors in an incident that sparked outrage across a country already alarmed at heavy handed security force tactics during months of social protests.

President Sebastián Piñera said in a statement he had accepted the resignation of Mario Rozas, saying he shared "the reasons and arguments" he had given for resigning.

Chile's leftist opposition had for months called on Rozas, who was head of the Carabineros military police, to resign following criticism from the UN human rights office and other organizations over police repression of the social protests.

Police officers on Wednesday shot and wounded two minors, aged 17 and 14, at a residence for troubled children and adolescents in the southern city of Talcahuano.

Children's Ombudsman Patricia Muñoz denounced the police for using firearms "in an absolutely unjustified and excessive manner."

At: https://www.ibtimes.com/chile-police-chief-resigns-after-officers-shoot-adolescents-3085548

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and his now former Carabineros (military police) Chief Mario Rozas.

The Carabineros' November 18th shooting of two teens was the final straw in Rozas' controversial tenure, noted for a policy of deliberately aiming for protesters' eyes - blinding over 400 amid constitutional reform demonstrations in late 2019.

Opponents are demanding Piñera disband the Carabineros, which had already gained notoriety for human rights abuses during the Pinochet dictatorship and its violent crackdown on protests afterward.