Manuel Negrete (human rights victim)
Encyclopedia
Manuel Estanislao Negrete Hernández (1946 – October 10, 1973), was a Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an man who was allegedly killed by police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

men serving Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

.

Negrete was a farm worker who worked on plantation fields and had experience with plants, fruits and vegetables. He married a local girl in his town, the city of Curico
Curicó
Curicó , meaning "Black Waters" in Mapudungun , is the capital city of the Curicó Province, part of the Maule Region in Chile's central valley....

.

In a case that would later on make headline news in Chile, Negrete was killed and two others were injured during a shooting on September 19 of that year. The exact cause of the shooting is not known, however, witnesses of the event claimed that an argument about something ended up causing a fight, which, in turn, led to the shooting.

What was said during the argument and the fight has never been known either, but it is possible that the conversation might have involved comments about Pinochet. Many dictators order their police and army to kill or torture anyone who might seem to be against the dictator's views.

The argument, fight and subsequent shooting took place in a bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...

 at Sagrada Familia. Negrete had been drinking alcohol that night as he celebrated with his friends, and alcohol may have played a part in the events that happened later that night.

According to records that were discovered after Pinochet left Chile's presidency, three gunmen entered the bar after the argument had spilled into a fist fight and started firing shots, injuring Negrete. Negrete ran to the back of the bar, finding a door that led him outside the store. Thinking that he could get away from the chaos without further injury, Negrete was surprised to find policemen there. They began to shoot him, hitting him several times, specifically in the brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...

 and thorax.

Negrete was taken by friends to a Curico hospital after the shooting. He remained hospitalized there in intensive care
Intensive Care Unit
thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...

 for 21 days before dying. Medical records, also disclosed publicly after Pinochet left the presidency, showed that Negrete may have survived had it not been for one specific bullet wound between his thorax and his brain. That specific wound caused his blood to become poisoned, and he died of septicemia caused by the blood poisoning.

During the 1990s, Negrete Hernandez was declared an "International human rights victim" by the International Project for Human Rights, based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

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