Manuel Estanislao Negrete Hernández (1946 – October 10, 1973), was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an man who was allegedly killed by

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

men serving Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. 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. 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. The argument, fight and subsequent shooting took place in a

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

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 A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

and

thorax The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...

. Negrete was taken by friends to a Curico hospital after the shooting. He remained hospitalized there in intensive care 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

sepsis Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...

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 is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

External links

Memoria Viva's page on Negrete, in Spanish

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Negrete, Manuel 1946 births 1973 deaths Deaths from sepsis People from Curicó Deaths by firearm in Chile Infectious disease deaths in Chile