Police arrested six people in Ñuñoa after a pursuit lasting about three blocks. The escape ended when the car, stolen minutes earlier using violence, ran a red light and collided with a public transit bus.
According to La Tercera, the pursuit began around 23:40. Meganoticias places the robbery in the early hours of Saturday. Neither source specifies the exact date of the incident.
According to police, six men on foot robbed the vehicle's 33-year-old owner at Simón Bolívar and Brown Norte. The victim was allegedly kicked while on the ground and threatened with a weapon. He sustained minor injuries.
Officers from Ñuñoa's 18th Police Station located the car at the intersection of Irarrázaval Avenue and Américo Vespucio. Lieutenant Francisco Cabezas, the patrol officer for the Eastern Santiago Police Prefecture, explained that police knew the routines of these types of gangs and that the team "had apparently waited for them at the intersection after this robbery".
The bus had no passengers, and its driver was unharmed. The stolen car sustained considerable damage. "Two of the criminals ended up trapped inside the vehicle, and police managed to arrest the other four occupants, who tried to flee the scene," Cabezas said.
Firefighters rescued the two trapped occupants, and an ambulance from the Emergency Medical Care Service (SAMU) took them to Hospital del Salvador. One of them, the oldest in the group according to La Tercera, sustained serious injuries with multiple fractures. The other had less serious injuries. Meganoticias reported that neither has life-threatening injuries.
The two outlets disagree about the ages of those arrested. La Tercera says five are Chilean, four with criminal records and one with an outstanding warrant for carrying a prohibited weapon, and that the sixth is a 16-year-old Ecuadorian teenager with a criminal record. That outlet gives ages ranging from 15 to 23. Meganoticias, by contrast, reports four teenagers and two adults aged 19 and 20. Because minors are involved, this article provides no further details about those arrested.
During the operation, police seized a revolver. La Tercera specifies that it was an unmodified blank-firing revolver, meaning a weapon that fires only blanks.
For now, the six people arrested are suspects. This means that the Prosecutor's Office is investigating them but has not yet formally presented charges against them before a pretrial judge. The sources do not report whether they have already appeared at a hearing to review the legality of their detention or what precautionary measures were requested.
The Public Prosecutor's Office tasked the Police Investigation Section (SIP) of the 18th Police Station with conducting a forensic examination of the vehicle, reviewing camera footage, finding witnesses and taking statements.
