[…] I suggested to the citizen [who had reported the robbery of money] to get into unit RP358, driven by second corporal DICAMILO LUIS, with assistant inspector JESUS FRANCO present as support [in passenger’s seat], as well as the abovementioned offended party and myself, we drove to sector 01 in La Segundera of Cagua, the location where the incidents had occurred, when we arrived in the above-referenced location the offended party pointed out three subjects who were gathered on the street in front of vereda (district) No. 44, and consequently we proceeded to stop the unit and shout loudly ‘Stop Police’ to the subjects pointed out by the offended party, with these subjects opting to pull out and show their fire arms and firing them on the police detail who arrived on the scene as well as on the motorized brigade that was engaged in the operation with us, finding ourselves with the compelling need to repel said action which originated with the exchange of gunfire, where two of the subjects managed to flee along adjacent districts and one of them fell down seriously wounded on the pavement, who at the time was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans, whose predominant characteristic was that his body was all covered with mud, that was when we immediately proceeded to provide aid to the wounded subject, transferring him in unit Rp-358, to the closest health care facility in this case the Seguro Social de Corinsa Cagua, in the company of the offended party himself, who witnessed the events which occurred not without asking for the identification of a citizen taxi driver who was at the scene of the incidents, who claimed to be called TEODORO ARELLANO […].30 41. According to this version, the operation continued, “in order to try to capture the other two subjects who confronted the police detail and fled.” Officer Saúl Ricardo Ramos Mora testified that, after learning over the radio transmitter, that the other two men had boarded “a small apple green color vehicle and were trying to exit the locality,” the police detail combed the area and managed to “spot a green Fiat Palio vehicle that was riding down the main thoroughfare [of] La Segundera Downtown Cagua at high speed […].” In his account, the officer described that the automobile “ignored” the “command to stop” and therefore “a chase” was ensued, during which “one of the subjects was shooting through the window at the detail,” until the officers managed to “shoot the right rear tire [of the vehicle…].” Hereunder the officer describes that: […] when they noticed that action unit 116 which was coming from Downtown Cagua to block the roadway was going to intercept him, is when the driver of the aforementioned vehicle got out of it and got down on the ground when he noticed the police details, but simultaneously, on the right side of (sic) a white-skinned, thin subject with a mustache gets out and on the left side where the driver had previously gotten out was another subject, Caucasian approximately 50 years of age, these men were carrying firearms and firing them repeatedly on action unit 116, which was driven by the Distinguished Private JOSE MALDONADO and commanded by Second Corporal ERICK TORREALBA, successfully hitting the unit of said detail, giving rise again to an exchange of gunfire out of the compelling need to defend our lives from imminent danger caused by these unknown subjects, with the two subjects who got out of the vehicle carrying firearms being gravely wounded, they were 30 Annex 10. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Ministry of the Interior and Justice. CICPC. Aragua Region, Cagua Sectional Office. Police record interview of Saúl Ricardo Ramos Mora, of March 14, 2003, page 207. Annex to initial petition of March 14, 2007. In the case file before the IACHR there appears a statement from this person to the CICPC in which he says that “[…] when I was arriving [in La Segundera neighborhood, sector 01, Cagua he saw three persons in the parking lot [and then he went back the same way] it was when he saw a Uniformed Police Unit of the State of Aragua, […] in said unit there were three officers and a person wearing civilian clothes, at that time the persons who were in the parking lot fired several shots and the offiers also fired, then he squatted down to observe again he saw that the officers were putting a person into the unit and it was one of the persons who […] he had seen earlier in the company of the other two, covered in mud and wounded.” In his statement he also responded that “[…] THIRD: Tell us, you managed to observe the exchange of gunfire? REPLY: Yes and also I heard several shots and then the officers were coming to the aid of a person […] SEVENTH: Tell us, did you manage to see the person wounded carrying any firearm? REPLY: When I went by I first saw them I did not see them, but when he was confronting the police I did see he was armed […] NINETH: Tell us, did you manage to observe other persons shooting at the police detail? REPLY: Yes the three of them fired, but I don’t know where they caught the other two persons.” Annex 12. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Ministry of the Interior and Justice. Scientific and Forensic Crime Investigation Unit (CICPC). Aragua Region, Cagua Sectional Office. Statement of Teodoro Arellano Vivas, of February 27, 2003. Annex to initial petition of March 14, 2007. 9