Published at: 12/02/2025 09:00 PM

“GREATER SEVERITY AGAINST PROVOCATEURS OF DISORDERS”, PRESIDENT RAFAEL CALDERA DEMANDED OF THE AUTHORITIES

(EL NACIONAL and LATEST NEWS, February 10, 1972)

• On the night of February 8, 1972, the 17-year-old student of the Industrial Technical School (ETI) of the West, Luis Gerardo García Jiménez, was shot dead by agents of the Metropolitan Police (PM), just twenty meters from that school.
• The event occurred in the ETI, located in Sucre parish, Catia, when the government ordered the dissolution of peaceful protests.
• In response to the wave of indignation over the death of Luis Gerardo, during the massive funeral, at a press conference, the President of the Republic, Rafael Caldera, ordered “greater severity”. As a result, the PMs arrived shooting as the funeral procession progressed.
• Luis Gerardo lived in the 133rd apartment, on the 11th floor, in Block 2 of Lomas de Urdaneta. He was a first-year night shift student at Catia's ETI, a great athlete and an outstanding student.
• At that time, in Caracas there were 111 public high schools where 134,000 students attended secondary school, with an average of close to 1,200 for each high school.
• Due to the overcrowding, poor conditions of the educational facilities and the scarce provision of classrooms, it was common for students to protest.
• The teaching staff was scarce and there was a clear deterioration of the sports infrastructure.
• For these reasons, thousands of students came out to demonstrate who received as a response from the Caldera administration the unpleasant presence of police forces to suppress their just demands, with the result of a student murdered and hundreds of injured and arrested.

Mazo News Team