The Killing of Dilan Cruz

Directed by Forensic Architecture

On 23 November 2019, during some of largest anti-government demonstrations in Colombia for decades, 18-year-old protester Dilan Cruz was shot in Bogotá by an officer of the Colombian national riot police unit, Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (ESMAD). The Strategic Center for Evidence Assessment (CEVAP), responsible for providing technical evidentiary support for the Attorney General’s office, conducted an analysis of the event using the available videos and a 3D scan of the scene. They claim that Dilan was not the intended target of the shot, citing an absence of supporting evidence. Our investigation reaches the opposite conclusion. By situating the same videos gathered as evidence for the legal case within a 3D model and applying a series of advanced methods of visual and spatial analysis, we can reveal that there is no shortage of visual evidence available to support the thesis that Dilan was the intended target of Cubillos, rather than the ‘mob’. -FA