[hotmeals]

Some of the cases you mention involve "military" police who are under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, instead of the Ministry of Defense. Many also are not the only police force, in Chile the investigative duties fall to the non-military PDI.

IMO as Chilean, it's a pretty bad thing democratically, for both historical (dictatorship) and more recent reasons. Still, there is a clear difference between when the police with deep ties to the army enforce the law and when actual troops do it.

While copper Gutiérrez and grunt Herrera both technically have the rank of corporal, one mostly writes tickets, deals with noise complaints, and has riot training, while the other only knows how to march and shoot an assault rifle.

The actually important thing is that this is testing the waters. Trump will use the troops for flimsier and flimsier reasons.

NOTE: Chilean police are semi-routinely brutal; this is not an endorsement.