Assassins in Puerto Rico take out family (part of drug war) including 2 and 3 year old in Puerto Rico, May 5th, 2009.
A man was executed gangland style along with his “family” including a 2 year old girl and 16 year old boy in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico on Tuesday. A 3 year old boy and his 23 year old “widow” were also wounded.
This was a drug assassination.
The media in the outside world are focusing on the death of children, and are including Puerto Rico’s death toll, like a high score in a national video game. Just another unique selling proposition for Puerto Rico’s tourism. OK tourists, here is where can visit the toabajeños, where you can stay and what you can see and do in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico (near San Juan). I bet you cannot wait to visit, right?
Back to the family murder scene. Imagine:
A BMW 325 pulls up on Alexis Marrero Olivo (aka Alexis MAD), with 4 gunmen fully loaded. Marrero tries to race away with his car filled with his wife, and 2, 3, and 16 year old kids. They come to a crashing halt when the family car gets in an accident. The gunmen, including “Sammy Trigger” open fire. Alexis Mad returns fire. Alexis, the 2 year old girl, and the 16 year old boy are killed. His wife and 3 year old boy are wounded. One of the gunmen in wounded in the exchange. Alexis mad crumbles to the street in front of the car.
What a glamorous life style these Tony Montana wannabees live. They go down like martyrs achieving enduring fame that will last for lets say 4 or 5 days until the media no longer cares to provide updates on the case.
Fortunately the 4 assassins have been arrested, and we might reasonably assume their BMW cruising days are over for at least 30 years. Wait… maybe not all of them. Some slick attorneys will no doubt argue that one or more of them did not deliver the fatal bullets, didn’t shoot at all, missed entirely, didn’t know what was happening, blah, blah, blah. At least one will likely go free in a deal testifying against the others, and he’ll return to the streets in a few years, if he makes it out of jail alive (maybe, maybe not).
A lot of wild wild west nicknames in this tragic story right? Here’s the list of “alleged” assassins:
Sammy Figueroa Baez (“Sammy Trigger”), Billy Perez Vargas, Jose Cruz and Rafael Ortiz Andino Velez
Victims:
Claribel Ortiz Velázquez (wife, 23, wounded), Adriel Ortiz Olivo (son, 3, wounded), Adrieliz Olivo Ortiz (girl, 2, killed), Angel I. Vargas Soto (16, killed).
Why you ask?
Revenge for the killing of Wilfredo Rosario Maldonado (36, aka “Chinese Valencia”), killed on April 29th in Toa Baja, killed in the same place as Tuesday’s slaughter.
For authoritative information about the case: Harry Rodríguez (FBI Spokesman); Jose Marrero (Investigative Branch, Bayamon); Vivian Acevedo (Homocide Division, Bayamon).
Aside: I hope many of you out there, with “casual” attitudes about illegal “recreational” drug use like marijuana and cocaine realize that you helped subsidize the death of children on Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, 2009. Don’t argue. I know there are those among you quick to claim that your “tax money” pays for this and that, thereby acknowledging that where you put your money buys YOU some ownership of the outcome.
Mr. Fortuno: Please make this a priority. Even if we ignore the lives of the victims, you have an abused tourism industry that is helping to devastate economic conditions in Puerto Rico.
The Insider
BTW – Puerto Rico has 282 killings this year, 3 less than this time last year. Does that qualify as progress?
- Lest we not forget: tourist massacre (rape and murder) of Sarah Kuszak:
- Be careful where you go this week University of Michigan geology students. We want you to have a safe trip.
Sources:
May 20th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
On behalf of all Puerto Ricans i have to admit the there is a high criminality rate. But you have to understand the fact that this statistic that you are giving; about Puerto Rico having the highest criminality rate has been greatly misinterpreted. Puerto Rico has the highest criminality rate per SQUARE MILE. Which means that it is very easy in a place that measures 100 x 35 miles and have 4 million people to have such a high rate. If you compare it to a place like the Miami Dade county which is slightly smaller than P.R. they have only a population of 2.5 million, and reported 320,000 crimes in 2008. and P.R reported 207,000 crimes in 2008. so i guess some people need to get their facts straight. Cause this is just comparing it to a county not to a complete state.
The island is just to small, the people are good but like gossip like no other place and news just tend to travel to fast in there. Also be aware of the manipulation of media that the u.s. government actually has. this is how they made a war possible and how leaders are getting elected. Not because of facts, but because of media and propaganda.
In your statistics and critics you should also mention how Puerto Rico has been in the top 5 happiest countries of the world for many consecutive years. stop watching so much news and media. start traveling, hit the books and once again get your facts straight.
In the news they just say that 3,500 Americans have died in Iraq but they keep forgetting to mention how many hundreds of thousand maybe millions of innocent lives the Americans have taken in the war.
Oh! and remember:
Florida’s population: 18 million. area: 65,000 square mi.
Miami Dade county’s population: 2.5 million. area: 2,400 square mi.
Puerto Rico’s population: 4 million. area: 3,500 square mi
DO THE MATH!!!
Oh the area is in miles so you understand it, since the only place in the world that uses the english system are the americans. not even the british that were the ones who created it use this obsolete system.
DO THE MATH!!!
May 20th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Sorry, but you seem to be off on a bit of a tangent. You don’t “have to admit” there is a high crime rate. It’s a fact.
I have not done a detailed analysis of all categories of crime. However, specific to this article is “murder”. As you should be aware that Puerto Rico ranks 2nd only to Washington DC in that statistic. Re:
http://puertorico.countrytoolbox.com/2008/08/14/murder-rate-in-puerto-rico-highest-in-the-united-states/
This a population based analysis… not based on square miles. When you compare Puerto Rico to any other US state or territory, and check the # of murders per 100,000 citizens, Puerto Rico is #2.
It’s also possible Puerto Rico is #1 since Washington DC sees over a million non-residents of the city arriving every day. They can kill people too. And when you include them in calculations, Puerto Rico regains it’s throne as King of all Murderous states.
Please don’t act like you are surprised about that statistic. I am certainly not surprised at your approach. Let’s explain this away as some kind of off based statistical anomaly or blame it on the US media, rather than prevent any solutions, right? This is denial and I hear it quite commonly, so you are not alone.
Regarding rates of happiness, perhaps it’s because many young men don’t live to see adult hood where there is more stress in their lives. Ignorance is bliss. Re: http://gilthejenius.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-can-you-say.html
One survey has Puerto Rico at the top of the happiness scale with Mexico and Nigeria, other good places to get murdered:
http://gilthejenius.blogspot.com/2008/07/were-number-2.html
November 19th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I understand where your coming from, but being born and raised in Ponce, PR and having owned a night club, I now for a fact that almost all “murders” in Puerto Rico are drug related and not random or hate crimes. You have to understand that PR is mostly “society based”, this term reflects that in a small area you have good areas and in your back yard you have bad areas. With a huge number of “caserios” or government housings, PR is having lots of problems trying to shut down the local drug cartels. I currently live in Miami, and the crime, random killings of innocent people, burglaries are of the charts. Bottom line is this, traveling to PR is wonderful, there is no need to worry. Do you belong to a gang? are you into drugs? well then no need to worry, PR is society based, according to your society standard of where you live, stay or hang out is where your chances lie, if you hang out at a bar in the middle of a “caserio” then your chances of a bad time are near. Tourists have a wonderful time in PR, they stay and see the beautiful places in PR. Dude, stop scrarring people. I know Puerto Rico’s richest families, I know there humble lifestyle, I know the middle-class lifestyle and when you really see the reality, PR is one of the most happiest places to live. In this case statistics nor numbered analysis are a base for the reality.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Franky – I acknowledge in my posts that this is largely due to gang/drug activity. That doesn’t make it right – and it doesn’t change the “reality” of the per capita murder rate.
You don’t have to go all the way into the caserios to get killed. A guy from my gym had his throat slashed in a commercial parking lot, after some gang bangers said rude stuff to his girlfriend and he didn’t know better than to shut up and get out of there.
Since you spent time in Puerto Rico and are now in the midst of Miami, I want to let you know… this is NOT something normal that people are supposed to avoid and live with. This is a serious issue. You’ve probably just gotten used to it.
You know why they tell you not to feed the alligators in Florida? Because after a while they get too brazen and become a danger to the “general public”. The seal is broken – and we’ll begin to see more deaths beyond gang members and dealers. Tourist deaths were pretty much unheard of until a few high profile ones emerged these last few years. I also have a contact that told me about a shootout witnessed by the crew of the Johnny Depp film in PR. They shot up a bar and the thing went totally unreported in the media. Puerto Rico’s authorities are in no hurry to acknowledge what is going on. That would be too bad for tourism.
I just wish Puerto Rico didn’t have such a defeated attitude where the modus operandi seems to be “just stay quiet and forget about it”, rather than being hopeful that situations will improve. Let’s see how the economic situation Puerto Rico is in right now impacts crime activity. I’m not very optimistic in that regard.
There’s violent crime of varying degrees in many different places. Yet, Miami is not exactly the poster city for a better life in the US (in my opinion) despite the fact that it has become a comfortable home for many Latinos transitioning from Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc.
This happened. It was real bad. And now people know.