85. Furthermore, and as indicated in the preceding paragraph, the CONREPOL report noted that “an indicator of police lethality is the disproportion between civilians and police officers injured or killed.”109 Thus, “in 2005, in confrontations with the police, for every civilian wounded three civilians die. This means that the police force kills more people than in injures, and the number of those killed is three times that of those injured.”110 The report also notes that “[i]n general, the information reveals that for a civilian victimized in a confrontation with police officers, the probability of dying is 72.5%, and the probability of being injured is 27.5%.”111 86. Additionally, as the Court will indicate in the chapter on Articles 8 and 25 of the Convention (infra Chapter VIII.2), the body of evidence reveals that the authorities did not take measures that would have been decisive to confirm or reject the line of investigation regarding the confrontation, such as taking fingerprints from the firearms or cartridges, or testing for gunpowder residue on hands to prove that the weapons were effectively fired by the direct alleged victims in this case. Also, no ballistic tests were performed to prove that the bullets collected from the police patrol vehicles came from the firearms seized. It should be added that no record of the ownership of the firearms found at the scene of the incidents was presented, or a forensic appraisal of the bullets that shot the alleged victims. Such appraisals that were not conducted and probative elements that were not submitted could have provided better-quality evidence that would have been of great importance to verify one or other hypothesis of what happened. This Court finds that, in the instant case, it is not reasonable to consider that the absence of such decisive investigation procedures – procedures that the Venezuela authorities should have undertaken and that did not depend on a request by the family members of those who died – could prove a hypothesis of the facts unfavorable to the alleged victims, especially in the case of evidence that could have been decisive to prove that the events constituted executions rather than confrontations. iii. Conclusion 87. Based on the foregoing, the Court finds that there are several inconsistencies in the version of the facts presented by the State and although they do not allow the Court to determine whether there really was a confrontation between the police officers and the alleged victims they do allow it to conclude that the State did not provide it with a credible and satisfactory explanation of the way in which Robert Ignacio Díaz Loreto, David Octavio Díaz Loreto and Octavio Ignacio Díaz Álvarez met their deaths. 88. In this regard, it should be recalled that, in other cases, this Court has indicated that it is incumbent on the domestic authorities to elucidate the facts and to determine individual responsibilities. Indeed, in any case of the use of force by State agents that results in the death of, or injuries to, one or more persons, the State has the obligation to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation of what happened and to disprove the arguments concerning its responsibility with appropriate evidence.112 This has not occurred in the instant case, given the contradictions that have not been clarified and the deficiencies in the forensic appraisals mentioned above. 89. On this basis, the Court finds that the State is responsible for the violation of the right to life contained in Article 4 of the American Convention to the detriment of Robert Ignacio Díaz Loreto, David Octavio Díaz Loreto and Octavio Ignacio Díaz Álvarez. 109 CONAREPOL Report, 2006 (evidence file, folio 184-bis-225). 110 CONAREPOL Report, 2006 (evidence file, folio 184-bis-225). 111 CONAREPOL Report, 2006 (evidence file, folio 184-bis-224). Cf. Case of Montero Aranguren et al. (Retén de Catia) v. Venezuela, para. 80 and Case of Isaza Uribe et al. v. Colombia, para. 88. 112 -28-