update
A Puerto Rican police officer screams near student protests at the
University of Puerto Rico campus in Río Piedras in January 2011.
Ricardo Alcaraz / Dialogo Digital
Neocolonial Policing in Puerto Rico
by Marisol LeBrón
T
he Puerto Rico Police Department is “bro-
ken in a number of critical and fundamental respects,” according to a report released
in September by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S.
Department of Justice.1 The report, based on an extensive investigation of the PRPD conducted between
2004 and 2008, found that the 17,000-officer force
Marisol LeBrón is a doctoral candidate in the Program in
American Studies at New York University. Her dissertation
examines the colonial legacies of policing and punitive policy
in contemporary Puerto Rico.
12 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 1
had established a pattern of excessive force, unlawful
search and seizure, corruption, and suppression of free
speech. The report also pointed to “troubling evidence”
that the PRPD underreports sexual assaults, fails to
investigate incidents of domestic abuse (especially
those involving members of the force), and ­routinely
discriminates against members of the Dominican community in Puerto Rico.
For many Puerto Ricans, the findings of the report
came as little surprise and only served to confirm what
is widely known about the brutal and ineffective nature
of policing in Puerto Rico.
“My first reaction when I heard
about this Department of Justice
report was: ‘Who in Puerto Rico
doesn’t know that the Puerto Rico
Police Department does this daily?’ ”
University of Puerto Rico (UPR) student leader Giovanni Roberto told
The Miami Herald.2
The DOJ report was released during a moment of deepening social
crisis on the island. In contrast to
the United States, where crime is on
the decline, Puerto Rico has seen a
17% increase in violent crime from
2007 to 2009.3 In 2010, Puerto Rico
reported 983 homicides, the thirdhighest ever, and 2011 is on record
as the bloodiest year in Puerto Rico’s
history, with 1,136 homicides.
According to the report, the
PRPD is contributing to the crime
problem rather than alleviating it:
“More PRPD officers are involved in
criminal activity than in any other
major law enforcement agency in
the country.”4 From January 2005 to
ranks. Most of these officers remain
on active duty, often receiving minimal disciplinary or corrective action. The DOJ report suggests that
this failure to properly handle complaints of domestic and sexual abuse
by officers has hindered the PRPD’s
ability to effectively respond to and
investigate sexually based crimes.
In addition to highlighting the
PRPD’s involvement in illicit and
corrupt activities, the report claims
that the PRPD regularly uses excessive, sometimes deadly, force when
arresting or detaining individuals
who either pose little to no threat, or
offer minimal resistance. The report
cites the murder of Miguel Cáceres
Cruz as one example that exposes
the larger flaws of the PRPD.
On August 11, 2007, Cáceres
Cruz, a 43-year-old father of three,
was directing traffic as part of a
motorcade for a quinceañero celebration in Humacao, a city on the
eastern coast of the island. Officers
“More PRPD officers are involved in criminal activity than in any other major law
enforcement agency in the country,” says
the ­2011 Department of Justice report.
November 2010, more than 1,700
officers were arrested on charges
“ranging from simple assault and
theft to domestic violence, drug
trafficking and murder.”5 On October 6, 2010, 61 PRPD officers were
arrested as part of Operation Guard
Shack, the largest police corruption
operation in the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s history.6 Particularly
worrisome is the number of PRPD
officers who are the subject of domestic violence complaints and arrests. Between 2005 and 2010, the
PRPD received 1,459 complaints
of domestic abuse by officers of all
Javier Pagán Cruz, Carlos Sustache,
and Zulma Díaz de León drove by
Cáceres Cruz and told him to keep
traffic moving. The officers stopped
their vehicle after they thought they
heard Cáceres Cruz insult them.
Pagán Cruz, a member of the Tactical Operations Unit, approached
Cáceres Cruz and got into an argument with him as his fellow officers
looked on. The altercation turned
physical when Pagán Cruz told
Cáceres Cruz he was under arrest
and wrestled him to the ground.
During the course of the struggle,
Pagán Cruz accidentally shot him-
self in the leg. The officer then unholstered his gun and shot Cáceres
Cruz multiple times at close range
as he lay facedown on the ground.
After the shooting, Sustache and
Díaz de León drove Pagán Cruz to
the hospital without notifying Central Command that anyone else at
the scene had been wounded.
The initial police report indicated
that Pagán Cruz had acted in self­defense, alleging that Cáceres Cruz
had resisted arrest and tried to grab
the officer’s gun. Shortly after, however, a video taken by a witness on
a cell phone surfaced on YouTube
and the local media. There was no
way to spin what had occurred. The
video clearly showed that Cáceres
Cruz had neither resisted arrest
nor posed any threat to the officers
when Pagán Cruz killed him. Even
the police superintendent, Pedro
Toledo Dávila, had to admit that
what the Puerto Rican public had
witnessed on the nightly news was
an “execution.”
The killing of Miguel Cáceres
Cruz, according to the report,
serves as an “illustrative example”
of the PRPD’s institutional dysfunction: officers engaging in verbal
confrontations with civilians; frivolous arrests; excessive use of force; a
lack of meaningful supervision and
accountability; and the failure of Internal Affairs to investigate matters
in an objective and timely manner,
if at all. During the course of the
DOJ investigation of the PRPD, over
1,500 complaints were filed against
officers for unjustified or excessive
force and assault. An additional
268 complaints were made between
January 2009 and August 2010, after the official investigation ended,
based on similar charges.
T
he DOJ investigation also
found that unreasonable
force is perhaps most
SPRING 2012 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 13
f­requently used against protesters
in an attempt to silence political
dissent. The PRPD indiscriminately­
uses batons; conducted energy
­devices (CEDs), such as Tasers;
chemical agents; illegal chokeholds;
and other forms of unwarranted
physical force against protest participants and bystanders who are
not violating the law and pose no
threat to the officers, others, or
themselves. According to the report, the “PRPD’s repeated reliance
on indiscriminate and unreasonable
force instills fear in individuals and
discourages future actions protected by the First Amendment.”7
The DOJ also questioned the
routine use of the Tactical Operations Unit to engage crowds and
protesters who pose little risk. The
Tactical Operations Unit, or Fuerza
de Choque, is a quasi-militarized
police unit akin to a SWAT unit
and has been accused of fostering a
“violent subculture” within the police. The report suggests that the deployment of the Fuerza de Choque
during peaceful demonstrations is
designed to “chill speech” through
extreme displays of force.8
While the bulk of the DOJ investigation took place between 2004
and 2008, the examples the report
uses to illustrate excessive force as a
tool of political suppression all occurred since 2009, under the current administration of conservative
governor Luis Fortuño. The report
cites three key incidents: the excessive use of force against students on
University Avenue in Río Piedras
on August 21, 2009, during which
police shot tear-gas canisters into
an enclosed dormitory courtyard
where students were protesting and
seriously wounded a student; the
brutality unleashed upon university students, union leaders, public
employees, and other activists protesting Fortuño, who was attending
a fundraiser at the Sheraton Hotel
on May 20, 2010; and the event on
June 30, 2010, when labor activists,
university students, and journalists
attempted to gain entrance to proceedings at the Puerto Rican Capitol
and were met with unjustified and
extreme force.
On September 8, Fortuño stood
beside Thomas Pérez, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil
Rights Division, at a press conference about the report and promised to collaborate with the DOJ in
order to reform the PRPD. Nevertheless, he has, for the most part,
shirked responsibility for any misconduct that occurred during his
tenure as governor.
At the press conference, Fortuño
remarked, “Although this predates
our administration, we have assumed the responsibility and we
have cooperated with the federal
authorities. This report discusses
deficiencies [in the PRPD] many
decades in the making.” When
journalists pressed Fortuño to account for the police brutality unleashed during the strikes at UPR,
Fortuño said the incidents were beyond the scope of the investigation
and not included in the report. This
prompted a journalist to correct
the governor, pointing out that the
events that transpired at UPR do, in
fact, appear within the first 10 pages of the report. Fortuño responded
by quickly changing the subject.9
At the press conference and in the
days that followed, Fortuño continued to reiterate his commitment to
police reform, stating that the PRPD
had already implemented 110 of
the 133 recommendations put forth
in the report.
However, given Fortuño’s repeated reliance on police power to
quell political protest and facilitate
the implementation of his conservative political agenda (as covered
14 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 1
in these pages), many doubted the
sincerity of his commitment to serious change in the police force.10
It became abundantly clear that
this skepticism was justified when
Fortuño announced that Marcos
Rodríguez Ema, his current chief of
staff, would be ensuring the PRPD’s
compliance with the DOJ’s recommendations. Activists and civil
rights advocates were outraged
over Fortuño’s appointment. In
December, during the second UPR
strike, Rodríguez Ema had made
inflammatory remarks about “kicking out” students, protesters, and
the leftist professors who “incite
them,” in order to make way for the
“silent majority” of students who
just wanted to study.11 Rodríguez
Ema’s remark that he would violently remove (“sacaría a patadas”)
protesters from UPR highlights the
rampant disregard for civil liberties
that characterizes the Fortuño administration’s approach when dealing with political dissent.
It was Rodríguez Ema’s hostile
rhetoric and sense of moral righteousness that, in many ways, gave
the green light to violently remove
students and protesters from UPR’s
main campus in Río Piedras, such as
occurred following the imposition of
the $800 fee hike in January 2011.12
It could also be said that Rodríguez
Ema’s comments condoned the actions of the PRPD’s former second-incommand, José A. Rosa Carrasquillo,
who kicked UPR student José “Osito”
Pérez Reisler in the genitals as he lay
defenseless on the floor during the
protests at the Sheraton. Rodríguez
Ema never apologized for his comments or the violence they justified,
nor was he ever censured for his actions by the Fortuño administration.
Instead, Fortuño picked him to oversee the PRPD on its path to becoming more accountable to the people
of ­Puerto Rico. As journalist Jesús
Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño watches as Thomas Pérez, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, speaks at a press conference
about the police report on September 8. El Nuevo Dia / GDA / ZUMAPRESS.com
Dávila rightly notes, the DOJ has
placed “radical reforms in right-wing
hands,” curtailing any possibility of
real transformation in police function, practice, and attitude.13
H
ow possible is true re-
form on the island—in
policing or otherwise—
given Puerto Rico’s neocolonial
subordination to the United States?
This relationship has itself, in many
ways, produced the socio-political
and economic crises contributing
to the explosive informal and illicit economy that, in turn, justifies
mano dura, or excessively punitive
and violent approaches to policing.
­ dditionally, the federal call for local
A
reform rings hollow given the extensive role that the U.S. government,
specifically the FBI and Department
of Justice, has historically played in
training the PRPD and policing the
pro-independence movement both
on the island and off. One of the unintended consequences of the DOJ
report and its aftermath has thus
been the reemergence of a very public discourse and critique of the persistence of neocolonial policing in
Puerto Rico, particularly among the
Puerto Rican left. Imagining alternatives to the current role of the PRPD
has prompted a critical examination
of how policing has functioned his-
torically to facilitate and secure U.S.
control in Puerto Rico, first as a colonial prize of war and now as a neocolonial commonwealth territory.
María de Lourdes Santiago, vice
president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), called the report “profoundly ironic,” noting that
the U.S. government, which has long
trained the PRPD and persecuted the
pro-independence movement on the
island, is now castigating local law
enforcement for being apt pupils.14
Indeed, the role of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, in shaping
the deeply anti-democratic nature of
policing on the island should not be
underestimated. During the 1960s,
SPRING 2012 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 15
as part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), the
bureau created about 135,000 political dossiers on supposed ­Puerto Rican subversives who were seen as a
threat to the national security of the
United States. Known locally as carpetas, the files were kept by local police authorities and used to discredit
the pro-independence and workers’
movements.
Learned from the FBI, this practice of keeping carpetas remains
an informal practice of the PRPD,
which forms the basis for harassment and targeted arrests of political
dissidents and activists. The carpeta,
however, has moved beyond the
simple dossier and become increasingly high-tech, as police during the
UPR strikes were accused of creating
video carpetas with camcorders in
order to keep tabs on students and
activists for further investigation.15
Police in Puerto Rico, then, have
historically collaborated with federal
agencies to surveil and suppress individuals and groups that challenge
the prevalent political arrangement
on the island, particularly Puerto
Rico’s political and legal subordination to the United States. This logic
of risk assessment still very much
shapes the PRPD’s practice.
It also appears that federal U.S.
agencies have infiltrated the upper
echelons of the PRPD. Three of the
last four police superintendents have
come to the position through expe-
rience with federal agencies rather
than rising through the ranks of the
PRPD. The current superintendent,
Emilio Díaz Colón, is a retired adjutant general in the U.S. National
Guard who, during the 1990s, oversaw the Puerto Rico National Guard’s
participation in the infamous police
and military occupation of Puerto
Rico’s public housing complexes in
an attempt to curb crime, known as
mano dura contra el crimen (iron fist
against crime). During the raids on
public housing, Díaz Colon worked
alongside Pedro Toledo Dávila, a former FBI agent, who served as Puerto
Rican police superintendent during
the mano dura era from 1993 to
2001 and again from 2005 to 2009.
Díaz Colon and Toledo Dávila bookend José Figueroa Sancha’s short
tenure as police chief from January
2, 2009, to July 2, 2011.
Figueroa Sancha perhaps best illustrates the impunity of the U.S.
government on the island and its
collusion with local law enforcement
to squash political dissent, especially
the pro-independence movement.
Figueroa Sancha came to the post
with the blood of pro-independence
leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos on his
hands. As the FBI’s former second-incommand in Puerto Rico, Figueroa
Sancha helped to oversee the ambush and assassination of Ojeda
Ríos in his home in Hormigueros, on
September 23, 2005 (a date charged
with significance, marking the anni-
1. U
nited States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, “Investigation
of the Puerto Rico Police Department,” September 5, 2011, 5.
2. F rances Robles, “Justice Department: Puerto Rico Police ‘critically broken,’ ” The Miami Herald, September 8, 2011.
3. U
nited States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, “Investigation
of the Puerto Rico Police Department,” 13.
4. Ibid., 14.
5. Ibid., 14.
6. Ibid., 15.
7. Ibid., 25.
8. Ibid., 26.
9. “ Fortuño insiste en que ya se han tomado medidas para enderezar la
Policía,” Elnuevodia.com, September 8, 2011.
10. See Rima Brusi, “The University of Puerto Rico: A Testing Ground for the
16 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 1
versary of the anti-colonial uprising
known as El Grito de Lares, which
occurred on September 23, 1868).
Figueroa Sancha also participated
in the De Diego 444 debacle on February 10, 2006, when FBI agents
carried out raids on individuals associated with the independence movement and recklessly pepper-sprayed
demonstrators and onlookers, including members of the press who
filmed the incident. The DOJ report
elides this history of federal U.S. involvement in local police issues, in
addition to federal law enforcement
agencies’ routine suppression of the
First Amendment rights of Puerto
Ricans on the island.
Although the report is incredibly
important for bringing to light the
disturbing, quotidian nature of police violence on the island, it fails to
account for a much longer and more
complex history of how policing on
the island has been, and continues
to be, inexorably bound to the maintenance and management of Puerto
Rico’s political and legal status in relation to the United States. For real
change to take root in the PRPD, a
radical transformation in the relationship between Puerto Rico and
the United States would first be necessary. Until the United States and
its various agencies are in a position
to reckon with the inherent violence
of the neocolonial arrangement, they
will remain unable to truly confront
the problem of police violence.
Neoliberal State” NACLA Report on the Americas 44, no. 2 (March/April
2011): 7–10; Yarimar Bonilla and Rafael A. Boglio Martínez, “Puerto Rico
in Crisis: Government Workers Battle Neoliberal Reform,” NACLA Report
on the Americas 43, no. 1 (January/Febraury 2010): 6–8.
11. Maritza Díaz Alcaide, “Marcos Rodríguez Ema dice que sacaría a patadas a los líderes estudiantiles de la UPR,” Primera Hora, ­December
2, 2010.
12. Maritza Stanchich, “More Violence in Puerto Rico as University Student
Fee is Imposed,” The Huffington Post, January 18, 2011.
13. Jesús Dávila, “Puerto Rico: Reformas radicales en manos derechistas,”
Centro de Medios Independientes de Puerto Rico, September 11, 2011.
14. “PIP califica de irónico el informe de justicia federal sobre violación de
derechos civiles,” independencia.net, September 8, 2011.
15. Stanchich, “More Violence in Puerto Rico.”