How Far Should Colombia's Security Forces Go Against Criminals?
Victims first: changing where the debate starts
When we talk about human rights, it seems we always start from the same side: the criminal's side, the drug trafficker's side, the extortionist's side, the ringleader, the trigger-puller, the one who threatens, the one who subjugates entire communities.
Today Castro wants to start from exactly the opposite end. He wants to start with the victim.
- The woman who gets a call: "Pay or we kill your son"
- The business owner who worked 20 years to build a business, and a criminal decides he now has to pay a monthly fee just to open it
- The farmer who abandons his land because a criminal structure decided it owns the territory
- The police officer shot at simply for wearing a uniform
- The soldier who enters a zone knowing someone is waiting for him
- The family living in fear because a criminal organization decided the neighborhood belongs to it
- The child forcibly recruited by an armed group
The problem with much of this conversation, Castro says, is that when security forces act, questions immediately appear. When a ringleader falls, organizations, politicians, lawyers and analysts show up asking whether the criminal's rights were respected. Fine — that is part of a democracy. But Castro also wants to ask: where was that same outrage when that criminal was violating everyone else's rights?
"The State must answer to us for defending us. While the criminal ends up surrounded by considerations and guarantees."
— George Castro, Castro's Common Sense EP017Castro is clear: the law establishes guarantees and the State cannot operate outside the Constitution. But a legal guarantee cannot become a privilege to commit crimes. And human rights cannot end up functioning as a political shield for those who destroy the rights of others.
The Bendito Menor case: when does the moral judgment begin?
To illustrate this tension, Castro examines a specific case that generated national debate.
- Identified by the government as one of Colombia's top criminal targets
- Allegedly linked to drug trafficking, extortion and intimidation of Caribbean coast communities
- Had become a social media influencer, openly showcasing his wealth and lifestyle
- Killed during Operación Centinela de la Patria, carried out by police and a DIIN special unit
Castro responds: those questions can be asked. He is not saying they can't. But then all questions must be asked. How many people lived under the threat of that structure? How many business owners had to pay? How many families lived in fear? How many police officers had to pursue men like these for years?
"If we are going to build a moral judgment about an operation, the story cannot begin on the day the criminal meets the police. The story begins before. The story begins with the victims."
— George Castro, Castro's Common Sense EP017This is not about a policy that simply says "find them and kill them." There are captures, extraditions, intelligence work, judicial proceedings. There are also operations where security forces confront armed individuals. And if someone belongs to an armed organization, faces down security forces, fires, and threatens the lives of those who come to capture them, then we cannot demand that the police officer die first to later prove they respected human rights.
An officer has 5 seconds, not 5 hours: deciding under pressure
This is where Castro wants to be very clear, because it is very easy to analyze an operation sitting in front of a computer 5 hours later, reviewing a video frame by frame.
But the police officer does not have 5 hours. Sometimes they have 5 seconds.
They enter a house. They don't know who is armed behind the wall. They don't know what is behind a door. They don't know if someone has a rifle. They don't know if there is an ambush. They don't know if the person in front of them is going to raise their hands or pull a trigger. And yet some people seem to expect the officer to take the first shot before having the right to defend themselves.
"A police officer does not have to die to prove they acted correctly. They don't have to wait until they are wounded. They don't have to wait until a colleague is killed."
— George Castro, Castro's Common Sense EP017- The criminal surrenders
- Is unarmed
- Has already been subdued
- The threat has ended
- The criminal is armed and resisting
- Shooting or aiming at an officer
- Threatening someone's life
- Facing down those who came to arrest them
The police officer has the right to come home alive. So does the soldier. And so does the citizen they are protecting. Castro wants a security force with rules — but he wants it backed. Not afraid. He does not want an officer entering an operation thinking that if they react, tomorrow they will end up as a political defendant.
Backing is not a license: three distinctions Colombia needs
There is a debate that Castro finds profoundly wrong: the idea that talking about backing the security forces is the same as giving them a license to kill. That caricature is too easy.
But it also has to be said clearly: if a uniformed officer abuses their power, they answer for it. If there was an illegal execution, it should be investigated. If someone acted outside the law, they face consequences. Castro says this creates no contradiction — precisely to be able to fully back the officer who acts correctly, you also have to separate out the one who acts wrongly.
What Castro does not accept is the reverse presumption: that every time a criminal dies in an operation, the first suspect is the police officer. That we first doubt the one in uniform and then ask what the criminal did. That inverts the order of things.
Ultimately, Castro proposes three distinctions Colombia still has pending:
For the criminal the law, for security forces backing, for the victim never alone
I want a strong State, not an abusive State. That is the distinction Castro places at the center.
A State afraid of criminals ends up surrendering territory to criminals. Castro wants the opposite: criminals afraid of facing the State and facing consequences — not police officers afraid of doing their job.
"Human rights cannot be a shield for crime. They should protect everyone, yes. But the State exists above all to protect the citizen, to enforce the law, and to reclaim the territory the criminal seeks to control."
— George Castro, Castro's Common Sense EP017The position that closes this episode is not a comfortable one — Castro admits that. But there are conversations that need to be uncomfortable.
Colombia should prefer that criminals know that if they surrender there will be justice. But also that they know that if they decide to confront the State while armed, the State will not step back. That is authority, that is order — and that too is protecting human rights: the right of decent people to live without fear.
"What worries me is a society where the police officer ends up explaining why they fired, while almost no one asks why the criminal was shooting."
— George Castro, Castro's Common Sense EP017George Castro is a Colombian-American political analyst, entrepreneur, and one of the most influential figures in the Colombian community in the United States. For decades, he has played a prominent role in civic, business, and community life, bringing together political, diplomatic, institutional, and community leaders from Colombia and the United States while remaining actively involved in issues that matter to Colombians both inside and outside the country.
As the creator of @CastrosCommonSense, Castro brings that experience to a platform for direct and independent analysis of politics, the economy, and the major issues affecting Colombia. His approach seeks to move beyond slogans and partisan loyalties to provide context, judgment, and common sense to Colombians wherever they live.