Published at: 20/05/2026 09:00 PM

(Latest News-El Nacional, May 14, 1971)

• On Friday, May 14, 1971, during peaceful worker-student demonstrations held near Plaza O' Leary, in El Silencio, Caracas, the 17-year-old student Marylin Teresa Names Hurtado was murdered by agents of the Metropolitan Police (PM).
• At 1:00 p.m., a picket of PM police officers, revolving in their hands, broke into the area, carrying out arbitrary arrests, accompanied by a massive deployment of bullets, tear gas bombs, combing and kicks inflicted against humanity by unarmed workers and students.
• Marylin Teresa Names Hurtado was the victim of these shootings while watching the protests unfold from the balcony of her apartment, located at No. 8 of the El Silencio Blocks.
• The projectile entered the parietal area leaving her mortally wounded. The distressed relatives managed to take her down to the street in a desperate attempt to save her life and managed to take her to the Dr. Carlos Árvelo Military Hospital, located in San Martín, where she died two hours later while undergoing surgery in the surgical operating room.
• That same morning of May 14, in La Guaira, high school student Jesús Alberto Martínez Chacín died when a tear gas bomb exploded in his chest. He was in his third year at the José María Vargas High School. He, his high school classmates and students from the Maiquetía Industrial School demonstrated on Soublette Avenue.
• At about 11:00am, agents of the Metropolitan Police (PM) and Detachment 99 of the National Guard were present, in front of the doors of Liceo Vargas, in four military vehicles, carrying combs, rifles and submachine guns.
• The injured student, still conscious, was taken to San José Hospital where he was denied the right of admission. His father had to go out to seek financial help to pay for medical care.
• Due to the lack of timely first aid and due to the violent impact he received, he died at 1.00 p.m. There was no one to treat the fatal wound he received in time.
• On Sunday the 16th, the 17-year-old, Freddy Enrique Ernesto Torres, was shot to the face by an agent of the Municipal Police of Los Teques while playing machine in a restaurant on km 13 of the Pan-American Highway.
• Two weeks earlier, during the May Day marches, the young worker, Jesús Terán Ruiz, was shot to the head by the PM. The inspector of that police force, identified as José Antonio Olivo, arrived at the demonstration with two bodyguards and began to maliciously fire his regulation weapon, with which he killed the young man.
• Those were the days of the first presidency of Rafael Caldera and his Minister of Internal Relations was Lorenzo Fernández.

Mazo News Team