Posted on 02/02/2010 6:38:44 AM PST by Ebenezer
In light of the rampant wave of killings that continues this year and a deficit of police officers on the state police force, Gov. Fortuño passed an executive order calling on the U.S. National Guard to lend 1,000 officers to work with the island’s police force until the government can train enough police officers to bridge the gap.
The governor glossed over the issue that the move could indicate a failure of the commonwealth’s crime fighting plans, instead saying, “The initiatives we have adopted until now in our fight against crime have begun to give results … but these have not been sufficient.”
“The aim of this initiative is to give immediate safety to people in the street,” Fortuño said.
The National Guard members will mostly work helping local police preventively patrol high crime areas, Fortuño said, adding this is not the same as Gov. Rosselló’s “tough hand” against crime when he used the National Guard to occupy local housing projects to fight crime.
“This is not aimed at occupying one area. The patrolling won’t just be in housing projects. It will be in other areas as well,” Fortuño said during a briefing on his speech with the local press.
The commonwealth is holding four police academies this year to graduate enough officers to bridge the gap, at which time National Guard members will leave the state police force.
As part of its stepped-up, crime-fighting efforts, the government and Police Superintendent Luis Figueroa Sancha are working with the New York Police Department on increasing mapping and local police intelligence in the island’s 13 police regions.
As part of this plan regional commanders will meet each week to review results of their intelligence work, Fortuño said, adding he will have an open seat at each of these meetings.
“Every week I am going to attend one of the meetings and I am not going to announce to which meeting I am going to go,” so that all regional police commanders remain on their toes and focused on results, Fortuño said.
Preventive policing has helped reduce crime dramatically in such areas as Loíza, which for years has been marred by gang violence and killings, the governor said, adding, “this does not attend to the [root cause] of the problem, there is no one clearer on this than me.”
To attend the root causes of crime, Fortuño said he has implemented sports programs to keep kids on the basketball courts instead of drug deals and music programs to keep kids occupied in their spare time so that they do not fall prey to the easy money of a criminal lifestyle.
“What will solve this is that our children graduate from school, what will solve this is that we support values that are inculcated in school and at home, that children are occupied in their spare time with sports and arts — that is how we are going to achieve the peace that we all want,” Fortuño said. “I am going to do what I have to do so that our people immediately feel as safe as possible, while all these things take effect.”
ping
Wow... I had no idea PR was so crime-infested.
Sounds as though some sort of tribal behavior has erupted down there, doesn’t it?
Yup. Aside from arming all the law-abiding people to the teeth how else would one fix such a problem?
I has gotten progressively worse since the mid-seventies. Drug drops on the south coast means an easy distribution channel into the US. I think they neutered a big ops center to plan interdiction efforts throughout the Caribbean basin (PROC or CBRN, can’t remember now). A previous governor’s PD executed a group of terrorists and there was an uproar that handicapped crime fighting efforts since. You get all of that plus a very high unemployment rate and a bribable police force and you end up with a mess.
A big turning point was when a drug traffic group took kids on a school hostage. It was a wakeup call, signifying their dominance and the destruction of what had been the order, safety, and morality in the island.
God bless Fortuno, and Godspeed to his efforts.
Big-time, and I say it with a heavy heart, having been raised in the island.
You must be referring to 1978, when police officers caught two terrorists who were attempting to blow up a transmission tower on Cerro Maravilla, a mountain located in the Municipality in Villalba. Unfortunately, the officers shot the two in cold blood after they had surrendered.
Opponents of the island's administration at the time, including the separatist left, did the utmost to place the blame on then-Governor Carlos Romero Barceló, accusing him of having ordered the execution (it was not uncommon to hear the Governor's political enemies refer to him as a "murderer"). In the end, there was no evidence to support the accusations against Romero, but police officers implicated in the crime were convicted and served long prison sentences.
It’s very sad to see what has happened to the island over the years. My husband has family there. At one time we thought it might be a good option for retirement. Somehow, the thought of living behind gates does not appeal to us. Also, the health care system is way overloaded there. Drugs have ruined so many places. There’s no where left to go.
Sounds like PR is heading into the Turd World gutter.
My concern is with the “open-ended” assignment of Nat’l Guard to police activities. They aren’t trained for long term police work, at most for riot prevention. There’s been no “state of emergency” declared in PR, has there? If not, I really don’t think this is an appropriate use of the NG; sets a bad precedent.
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