Published at: 18/06/2025 09:00 PM

(Clarín, June 17, 1963)

• Guillermo Gonzalo Hidalgo, 18, leader of the Democratic Republican Union (URD), was assassinated in the early morning of June 16, 1963, by agents of the Municipal Police of Caracas, in front of Block One of the La Vega Urbanization.
• Upon the arrival of a cage full of police officers, everyone present ran to take refuge in their homes, and the young Guillermo Gonzalo Hidalgo was shot dead.
• A police officer leaned behind the patrol car's right door and a single gunshot broke his heart in two.
• Hidalgo was a member of the Urredista Youth Vanguard. This movement was founded by Fabricio Ojeda and José Vicente Rangel.
• That same night, Adán Meza, 29, a native of Edo. Guárico, was peacefully talking with his friends Hermenegildo Guzmán and Cipriano Guzmán inside a bar, in Urb. de Coche.
• Inside the premises, an agent of the Metropolitan Police of Cotiza was present shooting his regulation weapon in all directions.
• The victim, Adán Meza, was shot in the back. Seriously injured, he was taken to the Emergency Car Station, where he died a few minutes after being admitted.
• In his defense, the police officer gave a false version of what actually happened. However, the Guzmán brothers and eyewitnesses unmasked it.
• Adán Meza resided in Vereda No. 107, house No. 353 in Coche, near where he died.
• On June 14, two days before the crime, the Minister of Internal Relations, Carlos Andrés Pérez, declared: “The country is facing a new wave of terrorism and as a result the police must act, pre-emptively arresting people who are suspected of committing terrorist acts.”
• As a result of the orders given by the minister, Guillermo Gonzalo Hidalgo and Adán Meza were killed in the back. Neither of them was a terrorist nor did they carry out actions that could point them to any irregularity. “Shoot first and find out later”, was police doctrine.

Mazo News Team