Puerto Rico was shocked by the occurrence of more than half a dozen violent deaths in the early hours of Tuesday, Constitution Day. The unfortunate events took place in the Martin Gonzalez, Piñones and San Lorenzo neighborhoods, bringing the number of violent deaths this year to 279.
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In Martín González, several lifeless individuals were found under the bridge of Route 66, in Piñones two women were shot; and in the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, another shooting death occurred, this time of a man. All these murders were committed between one in the morning and six in the morning.
When the three individuals were found in the Martin González neighborhood, specifically in the Campeche sector, the Homicide Division of the Criminal Investigations Corps (CIC) was notified of another fact. It was about the discovery of two women murdered and locked in a Toyota, Takoma van, a 2018 model that was snatched by masked men last Sunday from a merchant in the Jardines del Caribe urbanization in Ponce.
As this story was being written, Carolina CIC agents were waiting for personnel from the Forensic Institute to examine the scene where the women, whose identities have not been established, were killed.
The tweet reads, "Six violent deaths rocked the Country as news broke of a massacre in Carolina, the shooting death of two teenagers in Piñones and the shooting death of a man in San Lorenzo."
Agent Matos was conducting a preventive patrol in Piñones and upon observing the van, he checked the license plate, and it had a lien of having been stolen. As he approached the vehicle, he observed the bodies of two women who had been shot.
On the other hand, at about 1 and 16 a.m. today, an individual was shot on the PR-181 road, in front of the Eugenio María de Hostos school, in San Lorenzo. A citizen helped him, and he was taken to Hima Hospital in Caguas, where he died. The victim was identified as Angel Santiago Davila, 30 years old. CIC agents in Caguas are investigating the murder.
Another of the deaths occurred when hit men in a vehicle entered the Juan Cordero Residence in Hato Rey and shot dead Wualdemar Vázquez Mendaz, suspected of several murders, including that of a woman on Guayama Street. Waldemar, 27 years old, was booked for a case of gender violence. Authorities had long been investigating him for at least two violent deaths in 2020.
The Puerto Rico Violent Deaths Notification System established at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics presented the data of the 2020 Report of Violent Deaths in PR.
Puerto Rico has become one of the most violent countries in the Caribbean. The country is experiencing a wave of murders with firearms, marking the negative influence of the arms trade that comes from the United States on the streets of the country.
An urban culture tinged by growing marginalized social sectors, in full mutation of values, and marked by strong processes of impoverishment and social inequality, where the deterioration of the quality of life and antisocial behaviors converge more and more every day.