Governor laments extreme and ‘savage’ nature of recent violence

By The Star Staff

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Monday that although the homicide rate on the island is lower compared to previous years, now what is being seen are “intemperate and savage” incidents.

“If we have greater proliferation of illegal weapons, we see the use of those illegal weapons in an intemperate, totally savage way. We see it in events caused by those illegal weapons outside of Puerto Rico, which are also shocking in killings for reasons that are not understood,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “Here, I recognize that when we have innocent victims, what we are seeing on many occasions, not all, is that they are products of drug trafficking, of wars among drug traffickers, that is why we must not lower our guard.”

Pierluisi said an alternative for mitigating the situation is to empower the communities through the S.A.R.A model (Detection of the Problem, or “Scanning, Analysis, Response and Evaluation Assessment”).

“About 150 communities have been impacted in Puerto Rico,” he said. “The SARA model is carried out through community policing. Those are good solutions because it is basically empowering communities to protect themselves, so that we cooperate with law enforcement authorities and it is not seen as [a matter of] here are the police and here are the others, where we are not all united to combat that violence. So again, that incident of two dead and 13 wounded by gunfire, it is hard, but I am sure that our law enforcement [authorities] will investigate it and they will resolve the matter and then hold responsible whoever they have to.”

The governor was referring to the incident reported in the early hours of Sunday, in which two people died and 13 were wounded in a shooting incident near the Piel Kanela bar-restaurant on 11th Street in the Parcelas Hill Brothers neighborhood of Río Piedras.