On April 19, 2017, there were a series of protests throughout the country to demand that the government of Nicolás Maduro respect the Constitution. The response of the ruler was the deployment of uniformed men to repress the crowds.
During those protests, at least three people died in clashes between demonstrators and security agencies.
Carlos Moreno, a 17-year-old teenager, was shot in the head and was taken to a clinic in Caracas near the place where he was injured, but did not survive.
A few hours later, the rector of the Central University of Venezuela, Cecilia García Arocha, confirmed the news on Twitter and expressed her dismay at the death of Moreno, who was studying economics at that university.
In Táchira, Paola Ramírez, 22 years old, died from a gunshot. A video captured by security cameras shows when a group of groups on motorcycles with barbecue pass by her side and shoot.
Diosdado Cabello, who at that time was a deputy, as well as the first vice president of the PSUV, assured that the murderer was part of the opposition.
Another deceased was San Clemente Barrios, a sergeant of the Bolivarian National Guard. Tarek William Saab, Attorney General of Venezuela, affirmed that he was assassinated by a “sniper” in San Antonio de los Altos, a place where people were still demonstrating against the government of Nicolás Maduro.
On March 27 and 28, 2017, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) -after the approval by the National Assembly of the “Agreement on the Reactivation of the Process of Application of the Inter-American Charter of the OAS, as a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of conflicts to restore the constitutional order in Venezuela”, he issued two sentences that buried the rule of law in Venezuela.
Both sentences served as gunpowder so that the largest wave of protests and repression recorded in recent years broke out in the country.
The NGO Provea registered 143 people dead and 3,802 injured during the 2017 protests, mostly due to the excessive use of force by agents of the public force..
