The MININT already blames alleged “cybermercenaries” for “manipulating” the facts.
MIAMI, United States. – The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) reported this Wednesday that a minor and a law enforcement officer were injured “accidentally” on Tuesday night, in Camaguey.
According to the MININT notethe officer “missed a shot (…) from his service weapon.” The teenager – who is identified as “under 14 years of age, controlled by his terrible social behavior, who carried a knife and resisted arrest” – underwent surgery at the “Eduardo Agramonte Piña” Provincial Children’s Hospital; he is conscious and there is no danger to his life.
The note adds that “the bodies of the Ministry of the Interior continue the investigations to fully clarify the incident.” The official text criticizes “cybermercenaries who habitually generate defamatory and subversive campaigns against the Cuban authorities,” whom it accuses of “manipulating” the event.
Just this Tuesday, the independent journalist from Camagüey exiled in Mexico José Luis Tan Estrada reported on Facebook that “a child” had been “shot by a police officer.” “Medical sources confirm to me that a 13-year-old boy was admitted (…) after being shot, presumably by a police officer. The bullet would have hit the hip or femur area. He is currently undergoing emergency surgery. The hospital and the surrounding streets remain heavily guarded by police, State Security agents and Party leaders,” the reporter indicated.
Tan Estrada’s post includes photos of patrol cars and officers around the medical center.
Neither of the two public versions details key elements to evaluate the use of force: distance of the shot, relative position of the officer and the minor, number of agents present, protocol applied to neutralize an alleged aggressor with a knife, type of ammunition, nor whether there was immediate prosecutorial supervision. The MININT alludes to an “ongoing investigation”, without specifying whether it will be carried out by an independent body of the police force itself.
CubaNet reviewed the official regulations available to determine when a police officer is authorized to shoot in Cuba. In the Official Gazette and institutional repositories, there is no specific and public regulation published that establishes in detail the operational criteria for the use of firearms by the National Revolutionary Police (PNR). The accessible regulations mainly regulate the possession and licensing of weapons (for example, the Decree-Law 262/2008 on weapons and ammunition) and administrative procedures, not police rules of engagement.
In the absence of public operating regulations, the general criminal framework establishes justification grounds applicable to any citizen—and, by extension, law enforcement officers—when the use of force causes injury or death. He Penal Code current in Cuba (Law 151/2022) establishes, among others, self-defense: “Anyone who acts in legitimate defense of his or her person or rights is exempt from criminal liability”; and specifies that there is legitimate defense if “an illegitimate, imminent or current aggression” is repelled with “objective need for defense” and “proportionality between the aggression and the defense.”
It also contemplates the “fulfillment of a duty or the legitimate exercise of (…) position” as an excuse, and regulates cases such as the state of necessity and due obedience. These clauses are not a prior license to shoot, but rather criteria that a court could assess a posteriori to exempt or mitigate criminal liability if a firearm was used.
At the international level, the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, of the UN—the reference standard in human rights—state that officials “shall not use firearms against people except in self-defense or defense of others, in the event of an imminent threat of death or serious injury,” or to prevent a particularly serious crime involving a serious threat to life, and only when less extreme measures are insufficient.
Although these principles do not replace Cuban legislation, they offer a minimum parameter to evaluate proportionality and necessity.
The public controversy in the Camagüey case is aggravated by regulatory opacity: since there is no regulation for the use of police force with transparent operational criteria – grading of means, prior warnings, assumptions for the use of lethal force, obligation of reporting and independent investigation -, citizens lack a verifiable framework to contrast what happened with what was appropriate.
In the recent past, the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba It has disclosed abundant regulations on weapons control and licenses, but not detailed and public rules on the use of firearms by the PNR in interventions with civilians.
The legal determination of whether or not there was justification in the use of the weapon, and whether or not it was an accidental shot, will depend on expert facts that the Cuban authorities do not usually disclose (projectile trajectory, distance, proportionality compared to the alleged knife, previous de-escalation attempts) and that on the Island are not carried out by an independent party.
