COFAVI : Comisión de Familiares de Víctimas Indefensas de la Violencia Social

Abstract

COFAVI was one of the first organizations of its kind. The committee was founded in 1992, a year after the violent death of 32 year-old Sergio Schiavinni. Sergio was taken hostage by four criminals in a bar and used as a human shield when the police started a 40-minute shooting spree during which they fired more than 400 shots and killed Sergio. After this episode his mother, María Teresa Schnack, began a public confrontation with those whom she held responsible for killing her son. She obstructed the course of investigations that she considered fraudulent. She received death threats for carrying out her public campaign. She founded COFAVI in cooperation with some other family members of victims in order to combat the kind of police misconduct that had resulted in her son’s death.