Aruba has allegedly announced its decision to not investigate the killings of two Colombian citizens as a result of blatant police error in Aruba, local media reported Monday.
The Aruban authorities’ decision to not investigate the police shooting and killing of two Colombians, caught on video by a cell phone, was allegedly caused by a chain of impudent errors made by policemen on the Dutch island of Aruba on February 22.
News network Noticias Uno reported Monday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Aruba gave the Colombian consul a diplomatic note explaining that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths that resulted in the police action in Aruba’s capital of Oranjestad.
The submitted document apparently admitted that one of the police officers while trying to open the car door where the Colombians were seated in traffic “accidentally” fired a shot, not injuring anyone but consequently instigated other police officers to open fire on the vehicle in confusion, resulting in killing the two Colombian men in the car. After reaching this conclusion, Aruban authorities decided that there was no reason to prosecute any of the officers involved, including the first police officer “because his accidental shooting was not fatal,” despite the fact that the seemingly innocuous error ended in the Colombians’ demise.
Initial local reports of the incident relayed various versions of what happened and why police surrounded and fired on the car in the first place, including the Colombian’s supposed involvement in robbery and that the Colombians in the car open fired on the police first.
Despite the confusion, it seems to be that the Colombians were wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for drug trafficking charges, leading to the police shooting in the middle of traffic in a downtown shopping area of the island, killing the two Colombian citizens and arresting a third, reported the island’s newspaper The Daily Herald.
The Aruba authorities have been very quiet about the actual events since February and originally stated that large amounts of cocaine were found in the car, according to local Aruba online news source, AVS.
Other sources, such as Noticias Uno, however have confirmed that no drugs or arms were actually discovered in the vehicle.
