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9. Explíquenos, por favor, en detalle todo lo que pasó y cómo fue la intervención de la policía. |
There is a bike path that is being built here in Rincón at the Tres Palmas Reserve. The project first started in 1998 and continued in 2005. At the time they did public hearings and the community and resistance was enough that they did not start the project and lead to the enactment of the reserve in 2005.
There was an intervention March 6, 2025 on the northern side of Tres Palmas during a protest against the continuation of the construction of this bike path project in Rincón. That morning, the company in charge of construction had started moving dirt with the Puerto Rico Police already mobilized and protecting their project. They had set up surveillance cameras the night before, which alerted us.
They brought heavy machinery into the coastal maritime zone and they were placing cyclone style fence posts without any construction signs. The only sign that they had up was one that read “Artículo 200” warnings and threatened protesters with arrests. The reef is extremely sensitive in that area, so any earth movement or runoff can damage it. A group of us went there to observe and object to what they were doing.
I was standing by one of the posts they were installing and questioned what they were doing. When they ignored our questions, I sat down inside the post area and locked arms with two other protesters, Zaida and José, facing the officers. There were around 25 to 30 officers present. At least 15 directly involved in the intervention. They were Puerto Rico State Police officers from the Aguadilla Police Station under Cordero’s team. Some were riot officers [fuerza de choque], though the riot line was brought in after they arrested us. Their badges were visible this time.
They told us that if we didn’t move, we would be arrested. But they never warned us that they would use physical force. As soon as we refused to move, they began pulling us apart. One officer kneeled on my chest while another had her hands inside my shirt. They were trying to separate our locked arms using physical force, without giving any verbal instructions other than repeating that we would be arrested. They didn’t even try to speak to my face. I told them I only spoke English, so they brought someone over to tell me that to arrest me they needed my hands behind my back. Later they changed the cuffs to the front. We were arrested around 11:00 a.m.
The officers never explained the reason for the intervention beyond repeating that if we didn’t move, they would arrest us. They didn’t understand the project, the environmental concerns, or the legal boundaries involved. They simply said they followed orders and used force to remove us so the construction could continue.
Once I was arrested they put me in the police car and transported us first to a private hospital in Aguada. They asked whether we had insurance, and all of us declined, so they took us to the public hospital in Aguadilla. There, a doctor briefly checked us. I said I was not hurt. The police photographed our bodies, apparently to document any visible injuries. They photographed only my front, while they photographed Zaida both from the front and the back, almost as if they were taking pictures of her tattoos. After that, they separated us. I was taken alone in a different vehicle.
They drove me to the Aguadilla police station, where I was processed: paperwork, signed Miranda rights, and signed a form indicating I was not injured. They also added the doctor’s slip to my file. This was around 2:30 p.m. They put us in holding cells. There was running water in the toilet but none in the sink. José, who was held separately, had no running water at all. They held us there for as long as they could, until a lieutenant walked in later in the afternoon and asked why we were still detained. We were finally released with a notice to appear in court at around 7:00 p.m.
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10. ¿Considera que le trataron adecuadamente? Puede abundar todo lo que desee. (Si este asunto se contesto anteriormente no tienen que realizar esta pregunta) |
No. I don’t think the treatment was appropriate at all. There was no dialogue, no attempt to speak to us respectfully or directly. They spoke to us from behind, not even looking at us. My arresting officer didn’t speak English even though they knew I only spoke English. They held us in cells longer than necessary, with no running water and no basic sanitation like toilet paper. Their behavior was unprofessional on multiple levels. And beyond that, the police were enabling a project that is tied to corruption. It felt like corruption in real time.
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11. ¿Cómo se sintió emocionalmente? Puede abundar todo lo que desee. (Si este asunto se contesto anteriormente no tienen que realizar esta pregunta) |
When you ask me that, it genuinely makes me tear. I wake up from nightmares every night. Many of us do not sleep well at night. This isn’t just about a bike path. If that path goes in, commercial construction will follow, and the coast will be lost. The intimidation we’ve experienced is deliberate, and it works.
I’ve been trying to be compassionate toward myself because this level of violence is not normal, and my body shouldn’t treat it as normal. There is trauma, real trauma. There are moments in the videos that I don’t even remember, and I think that’s my brain protecting me.
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