Published at: 30/09/2026 09:00 PM

SEPTEMBER 1962: “SHOOT FIRST... FIND OUT LATER”

(Clarín, September 24 and 29, 1962)

Within the framework of the Betancourt Doctrine, “Shoot first and find out later”, in the month of September 1962, the following Venezuelans were victims of this policy of social repression:

• On September 9, Carlos Alberto Briceño, a 27-year-old worker, was shot dead by police officer Juan Francisco Fajardo, in the Isaías Medina Angarita neighborhood of Caracas.
• On September 9, Juan Rondón was stabbed to death by police officer Pablo Useche, between the street corners of Pinto a Miseria, Caracas.
• September 13, Alfonzo Rodríguez, an electrical worker, killed by a rifle bullet in the 23 de Enero housing estate in Caracas. He left behind a widow and four orphaned children.
• On September 16, Jesús Manuel Osuna, a university student, was killed by agents of the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL) late at night, after six months of police hunting. His body appeared between the corners of Cervecería and Puente República, El Conde de La Candelaria residential area, Caracas.
• On September 16, Irineo Meza, a worker who was shot seven times after being chased by the police in the neighborhood of Los Paraparos, La Vega parish, Caracas.
• On September 17, Omar Ramones Prieto, leader of the Communist Youth of Venezuela (JCV), was killed on the corner of Angelitos by agents of the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL), commanded by commissioner Ismael Bracho. Ramones Prieto's forehead was backstabbed.
• September 12: Mrs. Andara Mendoza de Chacón, 42, was shot to the head and was the victim of a shooting carried out by military police and national guards in the sector called Altos de la Cruz, in Barrio Unión, Caracas.
• On September 18, in the state of Táchira, the then Minister of Internal Relations, Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez, personally commanded an assault on the Prefecture of Abejales, a hamlet in the municipality of San Antonio de Caparo, in the Uribante District, to free members of armed gangs, arrested there for criminal acts.
• On September 29, Carlos José Romero, a young accountant, was the victim of a robbery at the entrance of the National Printing Office. Investigations determined that some of the perpetrators were members of Democratic Action (AD). One of them, Mauro Díaz, had the card of that party. However, the file was shelved and the case, although investigated, was shelved.
• On that same date, from San Cristóbal, edo. Táchira, the Director of the Public Prison of that city, Aristides Reyes, following the example of his boss, the first national president, declared: “It is necessary to kill about four or five prisoners to end so much protest.”

Mazo News Team