Police And Mayor Petro say violence was unrelated
12 people were killed across Colombia after the national football team’s loss to Brazil on July 4.
According to figures from the CTI and the Police Criminal Investigation Unit, four people were stabbed, three shot, two hit with a blunt object and three died in cases where the cause of death has still not been established.
In Bogota, eight homicides were reported, according to El Espectador. Two with firearms, four with knives and two with blunt objects.
Officials debated with one another about whether these murders were related to Colombia’s last football match of the World Cup.
General Rodolfo Palomino, commander of the National Police, disputed the figures, saying these were isolated cases and not related to the football earlier in the day. He said that there are always issues with intolerance and drink-driving, which don’t stop when the football is on.
Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro also disputed the Criminal Investigation Unit’s figures in a press conference on Monday.
The Mayor claimed there were five homicides after the Colombia-Brazil game, in contrast with six homicides on the same day last year. He presented statistics showing that murders had gone up by 11 percent on World Cup match days, compared with the same days last year — a total of 21 murders compared with 19.
Petro added “We consider the methods adopted by the administration to avoid disorder, disputes and murders a success.”
The disparity between different official figures has been a common theme after every Colombia World Cup match.
Caracol, for example, reported that there were 17 deaths on the weekend in Bogota, and that “none were related to football.”
