BOGOTA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Colombia's national police confirmed on Saturday that four officers lost their lives in a bombing this morning at the San Jose police station in the city of Barranquilla.
The four dead officers were named as Anderson Rene Cano, Freddys Echeverria, Yosimar Marquez y Freddy Lopez, while at least 17 other policemen were injured and are being treated in hospital, a police officer said at a press conference.
After the attack took place at 6:00 am, one person was arrested although no further details were revealed, said Mariano Botero Coy, police commander for Barranquilla.
He said the possibility of the bomb having been set up inside the police station and set off remotely is being investigated, although witnesses said they saw a man threw an object at the police officers before the explosion.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took to Twitter to express his condolences. "I utterly reject the cowardly attack against the police station in Barranquilla. We will not rest until we find those responsible. My solidarity with the families of the victims and injured," he wrote.
The director of national police, General Jorge Nieto, announced a reward of 50 million pesos (around 16,000 U.S. dollars) for any information leading to those responsible.
"We have visited the site of the events in the San Jose neighborhood, where investigators are moving ahead with the task of collecting evidence," said Nieto.
The mayor of Barranquilla, Alejandro Char, added that the attack was likely in response to recent successes by police against crime in the city.
"We have no doubt that this was in retaliation for the blows made by police to drug trafficking in Barranquilla and outside it. My message is that today we are more united than ever, we will never stop, we will not allow a few bandits to come and remove Barranquilla's dream," said Char.
However, another hypothesis is that the attack was meant to distract the police since, at the same time, a group of robbers stole a large sum of money from a security van. One guard was killed and another injured in the attack.
