Drug wars force Puerto Rico to call in National Guard

[NewGuy]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...uard,0,5017835.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean

By Matthew Hay Brown & Ray Quintanilla
Orlando Sentinel
Posted July 20 2004, 9:57 AM EDT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Facing a surge in killings and growing pressure for action, Gov. Sila Calderón has called in the National Guard to help patrol this U.S. territory.

In a mobilization that recalls the controversial "hard-handed" approach to crime of a decade ago, 500 troops with M-16s and body armor are set to join the embattled police forces in San Juan and three other cities as early as Thursday. The open-ended deployment is intended to free officers to focus on the drug wars that have pushed the island body count toward new highs.

The move, which Calderón had resisted during weeks of public debate, comes after another bloody weekend here. At least five people, including the first police officer of the year, were gunned down Saturday and Sunday.

That brought to 445 the number killed on this island of 3.9 million since Jan. 1. That's 31 more than the same period last year, when the territory registered a homicide rate more than three times the national average.

National Guard Adj. Gen. Francisco Márquez called the shooting of police Officer Santos Silva Laboy on Saturday night the last straw. Police and National Guard commanders met Monday to work out details of the deployment.

Residents were reminded of the mano dura, the "hard-handed" approach employed by former Gov. Pedro Rosselló, in the 1990s when he sent in the National Guard to occupy public-housing projects. Crime went down, but residents complained of civil-rights violations.

But those likeliest to be affected offered a mixed response. Nereida Machicote, 41, lives in the Luis Llorens Torres project, a notorious drug point in San Juan. She lost a 20-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter in separate incidents there earlier this year.

"The National Guard probably wouldn't have changed anything," she said. "Both of them were killed by people they knew, and most of the people who die in the area are killed by people they know."

More in the article.

 

[5stringJeff]

What about posse commitatus (sp?) laws? I didn't think using the Army was legal for police actions.

 

[NewGuy]

The whole idea of a disctinction between a territory and a state makes me nervous. I would bet that is how they will justify it:

PR is a territory and not a state. I would "assume" that is how they justify it.

 

[DKSuddeth]

theres also nothing in a legal context that keeps the PR leaders from calling up the guard for martial law. The constitution only provides for protecting the states from having the federal government use the actual military for law enforcement, if I've read the constitution right.

 

[NewGuy]

I haven't looked this issue up.

 

[freeandfun1]

What about posse commitatus (sp?) laws? I didn't think using the Army was legal for police actions.

Ah...... but if the state requests them for police use, that is not the FEDS using troops for police functions. The national guard is meant to be used by the governor of the states to use for whatever emergency purposes they feel it is necessary. Under this circumstance, they fall under the control of the state and not the feds and therefore, they do not fall under the Posse Comitatus Act.

 

[Big D]

Some how it has to be racism.

 

[DKSuddeth]

Some how it has to be racism.

They're all peurto ricans over there D, somehow I think thats not the angle here.

 

[Annie]

Some how it has to be racism.

ARe you flaming yourself, or my mistake?

 

[Big D]

This reminds me of the many hispanic areas in Los Angeles that the city had large cement barriers put in place to block certain streets to TRY to prevent all the drug dealing going on in only the hispanic areas.

There still crying racism.