Live
Audio Only
Authorities in Venezuela have reported that the death of a young musician during a clash between opposition protesters and police in Caracas was caused by a homemade firearm that could have come from the opposition protester side of the confrontation.
RELATED:
Here’s Your Guide to Understanding Protest Deaths in Venezuela
The 17-year-old violinist, Armando Cañizales, died last Wednesday after suffering a gunshot wound in his neck during the third week of protests by anti-government groups that have often erupted into clashes with police.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the cause of death was not from injured from a teargas canister launched by police as originally reported and claimed by opposition groups, but instead from bullet wounds that appeared to correspond to a homemade weapon, as a small metal sphere eight millimeters in diameter was found in the young man's neck.
Reverol said he believed the projectile was not fired by the police but by the demonstrators, as it is known that some violent groups in the opposition have built homemade weapons and use them against the police during the marches. Reuters has published photos of a demonstrator weilding such a makeshift mortar during protests.
Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami said Cañizales was killed during an opposition protest as he was standing in front of the Bolivarian National Guard and that the official investigation showed that six projectiles were fired with an unconventional homemade weapon towards police.
RELATED:
‘Give Up the Violence’: Venezuela Slams Opposition Bloodshed
"This young man was in the line of fire towards the police and it was the violent groups that fired and caused the death, either deliberate or accidental," said El Aissami.
Cañizales was a trained musician in the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela, created by the Bolivarian Revolution under former President Hugo Chavez, through which tens of thousands of young people from poor neighborhoods learned to play instruments and create classical music.
Gustavo Dudamel, the director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is one of the system's most famous student.
Newsletter
