Óscar Alberto Pérez

Óscar Alberto Pérez (7 April 1981 – 15 January 2018) was a Venezuelan investigator for the CICPC, Venezuela's investigative agency. He was also an actor in a film to promote the role of detectives in the CICPC. He is better known for being responsible for the Caracas helicopter incident during the 2017 Venezuelan protests and the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis. His killing in the El Junquito raid received worldwide attention by the media and the political establishment, and was met with accusations of extrajudicial killing.

Early life Óscar Pérez was born in 1981 and lived most of his childhood and teenage years in the suburbs of Caracas in a middle-class neighborhood. Óscar Pérez' mother is Aminta Rosa Pérez, a former government employee.

Career Pérez began his law enforcement career in 2000. He mainly served as an investigator for Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas (CICPC), Venezuela's criminal investigations and forensic services organization. He later became a member of the Brigada de Acciones Especiales (BAE), being a highly trained weapon specialist and the chief of helicopter operations for CICPC. He would often demonstrate his weapon skills on social media.

Following a 2012 raid while working for CICPC, Pérez was asked by a 10-year-old boy if his guns were real. When he asked the boy what they wanted to be when they grew up, the child replied "I want to be a pran because I will have a lot of money, nice women and the respect of the whole neighborhood". Following this encounter he decided to make a change in Venezuela, raising awareness and partaking in various charities with his foundation GV33 Moral y Luces. Rivas stated that Pérez "was born with a goal in life, which is to support people in need. He always did positive things. ... He made several short films to raise awareness ... to recover the values that are lost in our country. This is the work that Óscar has been doing".

For years, Venezuela has suffered from a political and economic crisis following the presidency of Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro. While working as a law enforcement agent, Pérez stated that he witnessed deep levels of corruption within the Bolivarian government's structure, experiencing the collaboration between state authorities and pro-government gangs known as colectivos in acts of theft and extortion while also observing the movement of cocaine by government officials with full impunity, singling out Néstor Reverol as an official who hampered his investigations into the matters.

Pérez expressed in interviews how he had thought about incorporating his helicopter skills in a protest for some time.

Hours after the video was released, Pérez was seen piloting a CICPC helicopter over the Baruta Municipality. Non-lethal stun grenades were thrown from the helicopter onto the Supreme Tribunal of Justice building while blank firearm cartridges were fired near the Interior Ministry building to draw attention to his message; Pérez later explained his actions, saying:

On 23 November 2017 Pérez appeared on an internet video. He sat beside a man who criticized the corruption of the Bolivarian government. As the video concluded, Pérez shared his only words, calling for renewed protests by the Venezuelan people, stating "the generals without troops are nobody".

National Guard barracks operation On 18 December, Óscar Pérez successfully implemented "Operation Genesis", which resulted in the theft of 26 rifles and 3 automatic pistols from a command station of the National Guard in Los Teques, Miranda state. The surprise attack resulted in no deaths, with Pérez and about 50 other rebels gagging and tying up the National Guardsmen, ridiculing them for supporting the Bolivarian government, asking "Why do you continue to defend drug traffickers, some real terrorists? …Be worthy of the uniform you are wearing, you are irresponsible, traitors to the country for not doing something". The group then destroyed images of President Maduro and Hugo Chávez, Maduro's predecessor.

President Maduro responded, stating "Wherever they appear, I have ordered the Armed Forces, 'Lead for the terrorist groups! Lead them, compadre!' …zero tolerance with terrorist groups that threaten with weapons the peace of the Republic."

On 15 January 2018, the Venezuelan army and the Venezuelan National Guard launched an operation after learning the whereabouts of Óscar Pérez, who was held up in the El Junquito parish in Caracas. Pérez and his team initially stated they would not surrender in defense of the family in the home, fearing that the family in the home would be killed by authorities. A pregnant woman and a child were also killed during the raid.

Pérez was then brought to the same morgue where he had to identify his dead brother and where his call to action began, His body was later buried nude wrapped in a single white sheet by the Bolivarian government on 21 January 2018 after the release of his body to his family was denied, Death certificates later released to the families of the rebels showed the same cause of death for each; bullet wounds to the head.

US Senator Marco Rubio (R) condemned the operation against former policeman Óscar Pérez and his rebel team. According to Rubio: "Venezuela has a Constitution with which it must comply, obviously covering up these events, it seems that these individuals were going to surrender (...) They have killed someone who was willing to surrender peacefully after a confrontation." The former US Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich also regretted the fact and indicated that the current situation in Venezuela is very similar to that of Cuba, for him, "The government of Cuba handled the repression in Venezuela, tried to also manage the economy, but that's like a blind man trying to guide another blind man. (...) And now what they are doing is helping the Maduro government to kill the Venezuelans."

Twenty ex-presidents of Latin America and Spain harshly criticized the Maduro government's actions. They wrote on "Iniciativa Democrática de España y las Américas (IDEA)" a message of denunciation. The underwriters were: Óscar Arias, Rafael Ángel Calderón, Laura Chinchilla and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez from Costa Rica; José María Aznar, from Spain, Nicolás Ardito Barletta and Mireya Moscoso, from Panama; Belisario Betancur, Andrés Pastrana, César Gaviria and Álvaro Uribe, from Colombia; Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox, from Mexico; Alfredo Cristiani, from El Salvador; Fernando de la Rúa, from Argentina; Lucio Gutiérrez, Jamil Mahuad and Osvaldo Hurtado, from Ecuador; Luis Alberto Lacalle and Julio María Sanguinetti, from Uruguay; Jorge Tuto Quiroga, from Bolivia; and Juan Carlos Wasmosy from Paraguay.

Amnesty International (AI), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that defends human rights, denounced on 18 January 2018 what it considered an illegal execution of rebel Óscar Pérez in Venezuela by government security forces. According to the organization, the episode raises multiple alarms about serious violations of human rights in the country of President Nicolás Maduro, including crimes prohibited by international law. According to AI's note: "In the operation, officials used a military weapon that is not only designed to kill, but also leaves little chance of survival, and the use of this weapon endangered the lives of people around." The NGO also called for an urgent investigation into Pérez's death. According to Erika Guevara Rosas, Director for the Americas of AI: "It is urgent that the Venezuelan government guarantee that the civil authorities conduct an immediate, impartial, independent and exhaustive investigation into the intentionally lethal use of force in this operation, and demonstrate that this was not the first time that the Venezuelan authorities justify the lethal use of force, simply based on allegations of 'criminal activities', leaving aside the rule of law."

Human Rights Watch compared the Óscar Pérez case in Venezuela with the massacres of other Latin American dictatorships. The director of the organization for Latin America, José Miguel Vivanco, said that what happened in El Junquito reminds him that "during the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile, news about terrorists killed in confrontations frequently appeared and often it was about executions." According to the official note, Human Rights Watch "condemns the operation intended to extrajudicially execute Óscar Pérez, (...) the operation would have caused the death of about nine people, at least five of whom would be members of the group of Pérez, and two would be a pregnant woman and a 10-year-old boy accompanying the group of rebels."

Filmography 2015: Muerte Suspendida