Cerro Maravilla Incident
Encyclopedia
The Cerro Maravilla incident, also known as the Cerro Maravilla case or the Cerro Maravilla killings (Caso del Cerro Maravilla or Asesinatos en Cerro Maravilla in Spanish, respectively) is the name given by the Puerto Rican public and media to describe the events that occurred on July 25, 1978 at Cerro Maravilla, a mountain in Puerto Rico
, wherein two young Puerto Rican pro-independence activists
were killed in a police ambush. The event sparked a series of political controversies where, in the end, the police officers were found guilty
of murder and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of planning and/or covering-up
the incident.
Originally declared a police intervention against terrorists, the local media quickly questioned the officers' testimonies as well as the only surviving witness for inconsistencies. Although reluctant, the Governor of Puerto Rico
at the time Carlos Romero Barceló
ordered the local Justice Department to launch various investigations, and asked the FBI and the US Justice Department to aid in such investigations, which concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the officer's part. However, after the local opposing political party launched its own inquiries, new evidence and witness testimonies uncovered gross negligence and murder on the officers' part, as well as the possibility of a local and federal cover-up. Local trials were held, and a total of 10 officers were convicted of various crimes.
The incident and subsequent events have become one of the most controversial moments in Puerto Rico's political history. The event is often referred to by local independence activists as an example of political oppression against the Puerto Rican independence movement. To this date, most public figures involved in the case—and some not involved—rarely comment on the incident.
and Arnaldo Darío Rosado
, two independence activists of the Armed Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Armado in Spanish), along with undercover police officer Alejandro González Malavé
posing as a fellow group member, took taxi driver Julio Ortiz Molina hostage and ordered him to drive them to Cerro Maravilla where several communication towers were located. Their original plan was to set fire and sabotage the towers to protest the imprisonment of Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of the 1950 assassination attempt
on U.S. President
Harry S. Truman
and the 1954 shooting
at the United States Capitol
where five members of Congress were injured. State police officers were alerted of their plan prior to their arrival and the activists were ambushed and shot. The undercover agent received a minor bullet wound during the shooting, while the taxi driver was left relatively unharmed.
, stating that they ordered the activists to surrender, at which time the activists started shooting at them and they returned fire. Initially, the taxi driver said he was under the dashboard of his cab
when the shooting started and could not see who shot first, although he contradicted his statement a few days later in an interview with the San Juan Star, a local newspaper, stating that he ducked under the dashboard of the car after the three men (the two activists and the undercover agent) left the car, and that he saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching. When he emerged from the car, he saw the three men alive and two of them were being beaten by the armed men, who were later identified as policemen. Then-Governor of Puerto Rico Carlos Romero Barceló
(PNP) praised the officers in a televised address by calling them “heroic”, stating that they acted in self-defense and stopped a terrorist attack.
Two days later, in a follow-up interview by a WAPA-TV
news reporter, the taxi driver stated that when the first shooting occurred, he heard one of his three passengers shout "I'm an agent! Don't shoot me, I'm an agent!" while the others called for help and shouted "I give up! I give up!". He saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching, later identified as police agents, when the three passengers exited the car, and the taxi driver was ordered at gunpoint to exit the vehicle. He was extracted by an agent, kicked, and taken away from the scene. While being escorted, he saw the two activists directly in front of his vehicle being beaten by the armed men.
(PDP), insisted that the investigations were just cover-ups and demanded that a special independent prosecutor be assigned to investigate. Two special investigations by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) were performed on separate occasions between 1978 and 1980, which confirmed the conclusions of the P.R. Justice Department that the officers acted in self-defense.
, Governor Romero Barceló was re-elected by a margin of 3,503 votes (one of the closest in Puerto Rico history), though his party lost control of the state legislature
to the main opposing party, the PPD. This loss was attributed by the New York Times to the surrounding controversy regarding the investigations at the time, however other news organizations, such as Time Magazine, attributed the loss to Gov. Romero Barcelo's stance on the island's political status. The Legislature quickly started new inquiries and hearings into the Cerro Maravilla incident. The Senate, then presided by Miguel Hernández Agosto, spearheaded the investigations by naming former Assistant District Attorney
Hector Rivera Cruz to investigate.
The second investigations performed between 1981 and 1984 by the legislature, the U.S. Justice Department, and the local press uncovered a plot to assassinate the activists and a possible, though not conclusive, conspiracy to cover-up these actions. During interviews of the Senate Investigations Committee in 1983, officer Miguel Cartagena Flores, a detective in the Intelligence Division of the Puerto Rico Police Department, testified: “When I arrived at the scene I saw 4 police officers aiming their guns at the two activists who were kneeling before them. I turned my eyes away and heard 5 gunshots." Cartagena, who was offered immunity for his testimony, added that several hours before the shooting, he and other officers were told by Col. Angel Perez Casillas, commander of the Intelligence Division, that “these terrorists should not come down (from the mountain) alive.” His testimony was corroborated by officer Carmelo Cruz who, although he did not witness the fatal shooting, confirmed many details provided by Cartagena when also granted immunity.
Other inquiries obtained similar testimony from witnesses, including the taxi driver who now stated that the activists were “alive and disarmed” when the police removed him from the scene. The taxi driver stated that there was a short exchange of gunfire, and when he was removed to another place nearby he heard a second volley of gunfire, but was asked by the police and investigators of the PR Justice Department to forget about the second round of shots. The statement regarding two different volleys of shots was upheld by various people, including ex-officer Jesus Quiñones before a Federal grand jury
(he quit the force shortly after the shootings), and three other civilian witnesses in a San Juan Star interview.
Subsequently, the legislature and local press started questioning the P.R. Police Department's, the P.R. Justice Department's, the U.S. Justice Department's, and the FBI’s actions during the first investigations, alleging corruption within the agencies and a conspiracy to cover-up evidence. Letters were sent by various community and political leaders to then Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Edward M. Kennedy, asking for an inquiry into the conduct of the Federal investigations. Several letters even accused former US Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti of providing aid to Gov. Romero Barceló during the investigations. Two leaders from the opposing parties, the Popular Democratic Party
and the Puerto Rican Independence Party
, charged that after a December 1979 meeting between the two, the Governor, then considered as a lifelong Republican
, began campaigning to deliver the 41 Democratic Party
convention vote
s of the island for President Jimmy Carter
’s (D) nomination for the presidency
(ironically, Carter’s opponent for the nomination was Senator Kennedy). Almost 45 days after President Carter won the nomination by 1 delegate, the U.S. Justice Department announced that, for lack of evidence, it was concluding its investigation. A Justice Department internal memorandum that was issued the same month of Romero Barceló’s and Civiletti’s meeting later proveed that the investigations were closed even when agents were still investigating important evidence of the case that could potentially incriminate the officers, including “several unexplained contusions” on a victim’s face and the fact that one of the police officers recanted his original story, stating that there was in fact “two bursts of firing”.
These, and several other accusations, brought public and political pressure to all investigating agencies. This led to internal revisions of evidence and procedures from the first investigations both at the local and federal level, though all organizations still adamantly denied any cover-up. These second investigations led to reassignments, demotions and resignations among top officials within the PR Justice Department, including 3 different P.R. Secretaries of Justice (equivalent to state Attorney General
) accepting and resigning their posts in a span of six months. On November 29, 1983, three prosecutors were relieved of their duties after a report by the state Senate Investigations Committee found they had failed to properly investigate the Cerro Maravilla shootings, citing 101 specific deficiencies in two investigations. This was the third state Attorney General to oversee the investigations since the shootings occurred on 1978.
at the time due to various reasons, were:
That same year, in the general elections held in November, Romero Barceló lost his gubernatorial seat against former governor and opposing party rival Rafael Hernández Colón
(PPD). It is widely accepted that Romero Barceló lost the elections because of this case, since his public opinion rating had deteriorated substantially during late 1984 as the investigations progressed, and since his political rivals used his defense of the officers as an indication of a possible conspiracy.
On the evening of April 29, 1986, just two months after his acquittal, Gonzalez Malavé was assassinated in front of his mother's house in Bayamón. He received three gunshot wounds while his mother was slightly injured. A few hours later, a group identifying itself as the “Volunteer Organization for the Revolution” called local news agencies claiming responsibility. In their statements they swore to kill, "one by one," all the policemen involved in the deaths in Cerro Maravilla. The FBI considered it one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the United States at the time, given that it was the same organization that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Navy
bus in Puerto Rico on December 3, 1979 where two Navy men were killed and 10 people injured, as well as an attack on a U.S. National Guard base on January 12, 1981 where six fighter-jet planes were destroyed. To this day, no one has been identified as a possible suspect in Gonzalez Malavé's murder, and the case remains unsolved.
In 2003, 25 years after the incident, former Gov. Romero Barceló admitted in a public radio interview that it was “an error of judgment” and “a premature declaration” to laud the police officers, since at that time he believed they were telling the truth about their self-defense. However, he has publicly denied any wrongdoing regarding the alleged cover-up during the first investigations.
Every July 25, Puerto Rican nationalists and independence activists gather on Cerro Maravilla to honor Carlos Soto and Arnaldo Dario, as well as to defend and celebrate the Puerto Rican independence movement
. It is usually organized by the family of the victims, former members of nationalist groups, and by the Puerto Rican Independence Party
(PIP). The mountain has also been christened by them as “El Cerro de los Mártires” (The Mountain of the Martyr
s). The movie A Show of Force
is loosely based on the events and theories behind the incident.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, wherein two young Puerto Rican pro-independence activists
Puerto Rican independence movement
The Puerto Rican independence movement refers to initiatives throughout the history of Puerto Rico aimed at obtaining independence for the Island, first from Spain, and then from the United States...
were killed in a police ambush. The event sparked a series of political controversies where, in the end, the police officers were found guilty
Conviction
In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant guilty of a crime.The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal . In Scotland and in the Netherlands, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which counts as an acquittal...
of murder and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of planning and/or covering-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
the incident.
Originally declared a police intervention against terrorists, the local media quickly questioned the officers' testimonies as well as the only surviving witness for inconsistencies. Although reluctant, the Governor of Puerto Rico
Governor of Puerto Rico
The Governor of Puerto Rico is the Head of Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Since 1948, the Governor has been elected by the people of Puerto Rico...
at the time Carlos Romero Barceló
Carlos Romero Barceló
Carlos Antonio Romero Barceló is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the fifth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the second governor to be elected from the New Progressive Party and also Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001, making him one of the more successful...
ordered the local Justice Department to launch various investigations, and asked the FBI and the US Justice Department to aid in such investigations, which concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the officer's part. However, after the local opposing political party launched its own inquiries, new evidence and witness testimonies uncovered gross negligence and murder on the officers' part, as well as the possibility of a local and federal cover-up. Local trials were held, and a total of 10 officers were convicted of various crimes.
The incident and subsequent events have become one of the most controversial moments in Puerto Rico's political history. The event is often referred to by local independence activists as an example of political oppression against the Puerto Rican independence movement. To this date, most public figures involved in the case—and some not involved—rarely comment on the incident.
The incident
On the night of July 25, 1978 Carlos Soto ArrivíCarlos Soto Arriví
Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví was an activist for the independence of Puerto Rico. On July 25, 1978 he was killed by police officers after being lured into bombing the communication towers on Cerro Maravilla by undercover agent, Alejandro González Malavé.The killing of both men spawned a...
and Arnaldo Darío Rosado
Arnaldo Darío Rosado
Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres was an activist for the independence of Puerto Rico from a very young age. On July 25, 1978 he was killed by police officers after being lured into bombing the communication towers on Cerro Maravilla by undercover agent, Alejandro González Malavé.The killing of both...
, two independence activists of the Armed Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Armado in Spanish), along with undercover police officer Alejandro González Malavé
Alejandro González Malavé
Alejandro González Malavé was a Puerto Rican undercover agent who gained infamy with the Cerro Maravilla case scandal.González Malavé, an outspoken university political leader, graduated as a policeman in 1979, the same year he went to work undercover...
posing as a fellow group member, took taxi driver Julio Ortiz Molina hostage and ordered him to drive them to Cerro Maravilla where several communication towers were located. Their original plan was to set fire and sabotage the towers to protest the imprisonment of Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of the 1950 assassination attempt
Truman assassination attempt
The assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S. Truman occurred on November 1, 1950. It was perpetrated by two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, while the President resided at the Blair House. The attempt resulted in the deaths of White House Police...
on U.S. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
and the 1954 shooting
U.S. Capitol shooting incident (1954)
The United States Capitol shooting incident of 1954 was an attack on March 1, 1954 by four Puerto Rican nationalists who shot 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols from the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Representatives chamber in the United States Capitol.The attackers, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael...
at the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
where five members of Congress were injured. State police officers were alerted of their plan prior to their arrival and the activists were ambushed and shot. The undercover agent received a minor bullet wound during the shooting, while the taxi driver was left relatively unharmed.
Initial statements
The morning after the shootings, the officers argued that they acted in self defenseSelf-defense (theory)
The right of self-defense is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of defending one's own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force.- Theory :The...
, stating that they ordered the activists to surrender, at which time the activists started shooting at them and they returned fire. Initially, the taxi driver said he was under the dashboard of his cab
Share taxi
A share taxi is a mode of transport that falls between taxis and conventional buses. These informal vehicles for hire are found throughout the world. They are smaller than buses, and usually take passengers on a fixed or semi-fixed route without timetables, usually leaving when all seats are filled...
when the shooting started and could not see who shot first, although he contradicted his statement a few days later in an interview with the San Juan Star, a local newspaper, stating that he ducked under the dashboard of the car after the three men (the two activists and the undercover agent) left the car, and that he saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching. When he emerged from the car, he saw the three men alive and two of them were being beaten by the armed men, who were later identified as policemen. Then-Governor of Puerto Rico Carlos Romero Barceló
Carlos Romero Barceló
Carlos Antonio Romero Barceló is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the fifth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the second governor to be elected from the New Progressive Party and also Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001, making him one of the more successful...
(PNP) praised the officers in a televised address by calling them “heroic”, stating that they acted in self-defense and stopped a terrorist attack.
Two days later, in a follow-up interview by a WAPA-TV
WAPA-TV
WAPA-TV is an independent television station located in San Juan, Puerto Rico transmitting over digital channel 27, virtual channel 4. The station is owned by InterMedia Partners and is branded as WAPA Television....
news reporter, the taxi driver stated that when the first shooting occurred, he heard one of his three passengers shout "I'm an agent! Don't shoot me, I'm an agent!" while the others called for help and shouted "I give up! I give up!". He saw "10 heavily armed men" approaching, later identified as police agents, when the three passengers exited the car, and the taxi driver was ordered at gunpoint to exit the vehicle. He was extracted by an agent, kicked, and taken away from the scene. While being escorted, he saw the two activists directly in front of his vehicle being beaten by the armed men.
The first investigations
Facing public pressure due to the taxi driver’s conflicting statements, Governor Barceló ordered two separate investigations by the P.R. Justice Department in addition to the ongoing standard Police investigation, all of which concluded that the officers' actions were free of any wrongdoing, despite various inconsistencies in their stories. P.R. District Attorney Pedro Colton informed reporters on July 29, four days after the incident, that the P.R. Justice Department's investigation revealed "no massacre, no beatings, and no aggressions, except for the shootings that occurred in Cerro Maravilla." Opposing political parties, mainly the Popular Democratic PartyPopular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico
The Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico is a political party that supports Puerto Rico's right to self-determination and sovereignty, through the enhancement of Puerto Rico's current status as a commonwealth....
(PDP), insisted that the investigations were just cover-ups and demanded that a special independent prosecutor be assigned to investigate. Two special investigations by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) were performed on separate occasions between 1978 and 1980, which confirmed the conclusions of the P.R. Justice Department that the officers acted in self-defense.
The second investigations
In the November 1980 general electionsElections in Puerto Rico
Elections in Puerto Rico gives information on election and election results in Puerto Rico.Puerto Rico elects on state level a governor and a legislature. The island's governor is elected for a four year term by the people....
, Governor Romero Barceló was re-elected by a margin of 3,503 votes (one of the closest in Puerto Rico history), though his party lost control of the state legislature
Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico
The Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico is the territorial legislature of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The structure and responsibilities of the Legislative Assembly are defined in Article III of the Constitution of Puerto Rico....
to the main opposing party, the PPD. This loss was attributed by the New York Times to the surrounding controversy regarding the investigations at the time, however other news organizations, such as Time Magazine, attributed the loss to Gov. Romero Barcelo's stance on the island's political status. The Legislature quickly started new inquiries and hearings into the Cerro Maravilla incident. The Senate, then presided by Miguel Hernández Agosto, spearheaded the investigations by naming former Assistant District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
Hector Rivera Cruz to investigate.
The second investigations performed between 1981 and 1984 by the legislature, the U.S. Justice Department, and the local press uncovered a plot to assassinate the activists and a possible, though not conclusive, conspiracy to cover-up these actions. During interviews of the Senate Investigations Committee in 1983, officer Miguel Cartagena Flores, a detective in the Intelligence Division of the Puerto Rico Police Department, testified: “When I arrived at the scene I saw 4 police officers aiming their guns at the two activists who were kneeling before them. I turned my eyes away and heard 5 gunshots." Cartagena, who was offered immunity for his testimony, added that several hours before the shooting, he and other officers were told by Col. Angel Perez Casillas, commander of the Intelligence Division, that “these terrorists should not come down (from the mountain) alive.” His testimony was corroborated by officer Carmelo Cruz who, although he did not witness the fatal shooting, confirmed many details provided by Cartagena when also granted immunity.
Other inquiries obtained similar testimony from witnesses, including the taxi driver who now stated that the activists were “alive and disarmed” when the police removed him from the scene. The taxi driver stated that there was a short exchange of gunfire, and when he was removed to another place nearby he heard a second volley of gunfire, but was asked by the police and investigators of the PR Justice Department to forget about the second round of shots. The statement regarding two different volleys of shots was upheld by various people, including ex-officer Jesus Quiñones before a Federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
(he quit the force shortly after the shootings), and three other civilian witnesses in a San Juan Star interview.
Subsequently, the legislature and local press started questioning the P.R. Police Department's, the P.R. Justice Department's, the U.S. Justice Department's, and the FBI’s actions during the first investigations, alleging corruption within the agencies and a conspiracy to cover-up evidence. Letters were sent by various community and political leaders to then Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Edward M. Kennedy, asking for an inquiry into the conduct of the Federal investigations. Several letters even accused former US Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti of providing aid to Gov. Romero Barceló during the investigations. Two leaders from the opposing parties, the Popular Democratic Party
Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico
The Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico is a political party that supports Puerto Rico's right to self-determination and sovereignty, through the enhancement of Puerto Rico's current status as a commonwealth....
and the Puerto Rican Independence Party
Puerto Rican Independence Party
The Puerto Rican Independence Party is a Puerto Rican political party that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from United States suzerainty....
, charged that after a December 1979 meeting between the two, the Governor, then considered as a lifelong Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, began campaigning to deliver the 41 Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
convention vote
United States presidential nominating convention
A United States presidential nominating convention is a political convention held every four years in the United States by most of the political parties who will be fielding nominees in the upcoming U.S. presidential election...
s of the island for President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
’s (D) nomination for the presidency
1980 Democratic National Convention
The 1980 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party nominated President Jimmy Carter for President and Vice President Walter Mondale for Vice President...
(ironically, Carter’s opponent for the nomination was Senator Kennedy). Almost 45 days after President Carter won the nomination by 1 delegate, the U.S. Justice Department announced that, for lack of evidence, it was concluding its investigation. A Justice Department internal memorandum that was issued the same month of Romero Barceló’s and Civiletti’s meeting later proveed that the investigations were closed even when agents were still investigating important evidence of the case that could potentially incriminate the officers, including “several unexplained contusions” on a victim’s face and the fact that one of the police officers recanted his original story, stating that there was in fact “two bursts of firing”.
These, and several other accusations, brought public and political pressure to all investigating agencies. This led to internal revisions of evidence and procedures from the first investigations both at the local and federal level, though all organizations still adamantly denied any cover-up. These second investigations led to reassignments, demotions and resignations among top officials within the PR Justice Department, including 3 different P.R. Secretaries of Justice (equivalent to state Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
) accepting and resigning their posts in a span of six months. On November 29, 1983, three prosecutors were relieved of their duties after a report by the state Senate Investigations Committee found they had failed to properly investigate the Cerro Maravilla shootings, citing 101 specific deficiencies in two investigations. This was the third state Attorney General to oversee the investigations since the shootings occurred on 1978.
Aftermath
The second investigations led to ten officers being indicted and found guilty of perjury, destruction of evidence, and obstruction of justice, of which four were convicted of second-degree murder during 1984. The convicted officers, which were not on active dutyActive duty
Active duty refers to a full-time occupation as part of a military force, as opposed to reserve duty.-Pakistan:The Pakistan Armed Forces are one of the largest active service forces in the world with almost 610,000 full time personnel due to the complex and volatile nature of Pakistan's...
at the time due to various reasons, were:
- Col. Ángel Pérez Casillas (head of the Puerto Rico Police Department Intelligence Division during the incident; suspended)
- Lieut.LieutenantA lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Nelson González Pérez (resigned), - Lieut. Jaime Quíles Hernández (suspended),
- Officer Juan Bruno González (suspended),
- Officer William Colón Berríos (suspended),
- Officer Nazario Mateo Espada (suspended),
- Officer Rafael Moreno Morales (suspended),
- Officer Luis Reverón Martínez (on disability leave),
- Officer Jose Ríos Polanco (suspended), and
- Officer Rafael Torres Marrero (on disability leave).
That same year, in the general elections held in November, Romero Barceló lost his gubernatorial seat against former governor and opposing party rival Rafael Hernández Colón
Rafael Hernández Colón
Rafael Hernández Colón is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the fourth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for three non-consecutive terms, from 1973 to 1977 and from 1985 to 1993. An experienced politician, Hernández holds the record for being the youngest Governor of Puerto Rico,...
(PPD). It is widely accepted that Romero Barceló lost the elections because of this case, since his public opinion rating had deteriorated substantially during late 1984 as the investigations progressed, and since his political rivals used his defense of the officers as an indication of a possible conspiracy.
Undercover agent murdered
Alejandro Gonzalez Malavé, the undercover agent who was accompanying the activists, was not indicted for his part in the slayings because he was granted immunity for testifying against other officers, but was removed from the police force due to public pressure. In February 1986, he was acquitted of kidnapping the taxi driver. His lawyer had argued that he was acting under orders and, therefore, it was the government who was actually guilty of kidnapping, even though testimony from officer Carmelo Cruz testified that it was Gonzalez Malavé who recklessly endangered the hostage’s life. The prosecution had provided evidence that he threatened the hostage at gunpoint, drove the car, and, when the car approached the mountaintop, refused to free the hostage despite suggestions from the activists. These actions, according to officer Cruz, were contrary to standard police procedures since his primary concern should have been the safety of the hostage. Nevertheless, the Puerto Rico Police Department did not reinstate Gonzalez as an active police officer, a fact that he publicly expressed resentment over, and subsequently threatened to provide incriminating evidence to the media about other individuals involved in the shootings unless reinstated.On the evening of April 29, 1986, just two months after his acquittal, Gonzalez Malavé was assassinated in front of his mother's house in Bayamón. He received three gunshot wounds while his mother was slightly injured. A few hours later, a group identifying itself as the “Volunteer Organization for the Revolution” called local news agencies claiming responsibility. In their statements they swore to kill, "one by one," all the policemen involved in the deaths in Cerro Maravilla. The FBI considered it one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the United States at the time, given that it was the same organization that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
bus in Puerto Rico on December 3, 1979 where two Navy men were killed and 10 people injured, as well as an attack on a U.S. National Guard base on January 12, 1981 where six fighter-jet planes were destroyed. To this day, no one has been identified as a possible suspect in Gonzalez Malavé's murder, and the case remains unsolved.
Public apologies
In 1992, former US Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief Drew S. Days III admitted before the P.R. Senate that the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI acted negligently during the 1978-1980 investigations of the Cerro Maravilla incident, such as rejecting interviews with key witnesses (including the taxi driver), refusing to offer immunity to certain witnesses, and avoiding various standard investigating tasks. Days stated: "I think that certainly an apology is justified with respect to the way the federal government handled its investigation: the FBI, the Justice Department, and my division . . . it was not done in the professional way that it should have been done." FBI Director William S. Sessions had made similar concessions in a written statement in 1990, stating: “In hindsight, the eyewitness should have been interviewed and a civil rights investigation initiated”. In 1984, the FBI conducted an internal review of its Cerro Maravilla Case files, and concluded that there was no cover-up effort inside the FBI, only a desire to avoid derailing “the cooperative anti-terrorism effort” with the Puerto Rican police. Their statements were accompanied with promises to improve their agencies to avoid similar incidents in the future.In 2003, 25 years after the incident, former Gov. Romero Barceló admitted in a public radio interview that it was “an error of judgment” and “a premature declaration” to laud the police officers, since at that time he believed they were telling the truth about their self-defense. However, he has publicly denied any wrongdoing regarding the alleged cover-up during the first investigations.
Legacy
Ever since the final investigations ceased, there has been a much heated debate about the Cerro Maravilla incident within Puerto Rico, with some groups arguing that there are still others responsible for planning and/or ordering the plot to kill the activists as well as the subsequent cover-up, while others have argued that the incident was exaggerated by rival politicians and the media, maintaining that no conspiracy was ever present and that some of the officers incarcerated, though not all, are actually innocent.Every July 25, Puerto Rican nationalists and independence activists gather on Cerro Maravilla to honor Carlos Soto and Arnaldo Dario, as well as to defend and celebrate the Puerto Rican independence movement
Puerto Rican independence movement
The Puerto Rican independence movement refers to initiatives throughout the history of Puerto Rico aimed at obtaining independence for the Island, first from Spain, and then from the United States...
. It is usually organized by the family of the victims, former members of nationalist groups, and by the Puerto Rican Independence Party
Puerto Rican Independence Party
The Puerto Rican Independence Party is a Puerto Rican political party that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from United States suzerainty....
(PIP). The mountain has also been christened by them as “El Cerro de los Mártires” (The Mountain of the Martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
s). The movie A Show of Force
A Show of Force
A Show of Force is a 1990 thriller, directed by Bruno Barreto. The film is based on events and theories surrounding the Maravilla Hill case in Puerto Rico adapted from Anne Nelson's book, "Murder Under Two Flags."-Plot:...
is loosely based on the events and theories behind the incident.
Further reading
- Cerro Maravilla Archive (2000), Ewin Martinez Torre, ed., database online available at: http://home.coqui.net/ciales15/cmindex.htm
- Nelson, Anne (March 1986), Murder Under Two Flags: The U.S., Puerto Rico, and the Cerro Maravilla Cover-Up, Ticknor & FieldsWilliam TicknorWilliam Davis Ticknor I was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields.-Life and work:...
, ISBN 0-89919-371-4
- Suarez, Manuel (September 1987), Requiem on Cerro Maravilla: The Police Murders in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Government Cover-Up, Waterfront Press (Washington, DC) ISBN 0-943862-36-1
- Suarez, Manuel (January 2003), Two Lynchings on Cerro Maravilla: The Police Murders in Puerto Rico and the Federal Government Cover Up, Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (IPRAC) Editorial House (Editorial Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña), ISBN 0-86581-588-7