From Dark Nights
Memory and solidarity with those who challenge power
In the early hours of November 19, 2015, comrade Kevin Garrido, who was 18 years old, rode his bicycle to the vicinity of the San Bernardo Gendarmerie School, armed with a bomb, a knife, and a lighter. After selecting the placement location, the comrade activates the bomb they had crafted in an artisanal manner (composed of a fire extinguisher filled with more than 2 kilos of black powder, shrapnel, and a fuse).
After the detonation at one of the entrances of the prison school, the comrade was quickly pursued and captured by a civilian car of the bastard Chilean police who had been following their steps, due to the placement of another explosive device that was set in the 12th police station of San Miguel on October 29, 2015, which was claimed by the “International Conspiracy for Revenge – Explosion Cell Gerasimos Tsakalos“ *(a comrade of the CCF imprisoned in Greece).
That same night, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the anarchist comrade Joaquín García Chanks, who was classified as a co-author of the attack carried out at the 12th police station, along with Kevin. The next morning, both comrades were paraded on all television channels as a trophy for the Chilean police state: “They sat me in one of their showrooms for more than six hours to hear the words spewed by a prosecutor with a nauseating stench. Faced with the speeches of judges and prosecutors accusing my companero and me and threatening us with dozens of years in prison, they expected faces of sadness or concern, not knowing that we would laugh and insult them to their faces.” (Kevin Garrido, Noviembre del 2016).
After their formalization, the comrades were placed in preventive detention in the maximum security section of the CAS. In June 2016, after living for 7 months in this regime of punishment and isolation, Kevin requested a transfer to the Santiago 1 prison/company, where he was sent to different modules for repeat offenders, without first passing through the “first-timers” modules as is the protocol, clearly showing an act of revenge by the gendarmerie. Even so, Kevin never asked for considerations from his miserable prison guards, nor did he walk in fear inside the prison. On the contrary, Kevin lived his imprisonment with the same determination he practiced on the street, and for this reason, he was always well received by other inmates in the modules he lived in.
In July 2016, comrade Joaquín managed to get out of prison with total house arrest, which he broke a few days later. In September 2016, after being in hiding for more than two months, Joaquín was recaptured by the PDI, carrying a revolver and ammunition.
After 3 years and 7 months of imprisonment, an extensive oral trial was held against both comrades. The court found them guilty of the attack on the 12th police station in San Miguel, but additionally, Kevin was found guilty of the attack on the gendarmerie school, and Joaquín for carrying a firearm and ammunition that he was carrying when he was recaptured. For these crimes, on 09/05/2018, Kevin and Joaquín were sentenced to 17 and 13 years in prison, respectively.
On the morning of Friday, November 2, 2018, after the morning count, comrade Kevin Garrido faced a conflict with a tyrannical prison guard, who cowardly and dishonorably attacked him from behind while comrade Kevin was going to get his weapon to confront him. After this cowardly attack, Kevin had to remain seriously injured, without receiving the necessary medical assistance, waiting for the ambulance for 1 hour and 15 minutes. He was transferred to Barros Luco Hospital, where he died after a high-risk operation.
On Sunday, November 5th, a massive funeral was held, which traveled from San Bernardo to the La Victoria neighborhood, where it was received by comrades and supporters, who accompanied the funeral procession with shouts, pamphlets, banners, fire, fireworks, and gunfire. All this under a heavy police siege that included helicopters, GOPE, police cars, injured individuals, and confrontations.
Comrade Kevin Garrido never considered himself a victim of the prison system; on the contrary, he faced it with dignity, declaring war on all expressions of the bastard authoritarianism that constitutes it, whether they be prison guards, authoritarian prisoners, judges, or prosecutors.
The insurrectionary path that Kevin embarked on from a young age, we reclaim every year by making it present in street fighting, in multiple forms of propaganda, and in direct actions that challenge authority, the prison system, and the infrastructure of progress.
Currently, comrade Joaquín García is imprisoned in the La Gonzalina prison/company in Rancagua, sentenced until November 2028.
“Who can say they are the first to tread this path, always cluttered with multiple trails? We inherit, perhaps unwittingly, the tools and the impetus that others have left behind; some have renounced, others have left, and a few still stand their ground, but what has never ceased to exist is the fertile ground, the antagonistic space in which violence can be exercised, projected, matured, and differentiated.” (Joaquín García. December 2018)
Black November in memory of our comrade
Kevin Garrido and all our dead
Freedom for comrade Joaquín García!
Received by email & translated by Dark Nights
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