CARACAS – Two police officers were gunned down outside a police station in Caracas, while two other members of the Venezuelan security forces were killed in separate incidents elsewhere in the Andean nation, authorities said Friday.
A 24-year-old man was set to be arraigned in connection with the deaths of officers Cesar Sanchez and Zaid Peña during an attack in the wee hours of Thursday at a police station in western Caracas, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Three other policemen were wounded in that assault.
The investigation of the attack led police to a home where they found and freed two kidnapping victims, the AG Office said.
Separately, a policeman was fatally shot in front of his family while celebrating Christmas at their home in the central state of Miranda, Union Radio reported.
In the western state of Carabobo, according to Union Radio, an agent of Venezuela’s Sebin intelligence service died after being shot twice by robbers who took his gun.
The Venezuela Violence Observatory, an NGO, says the country has a homicide rate of 82 per 100,000 residents, nearly 10 times the global median. The government cites a figure of 62 murders for every 100,000 inhabitants.
