Ponce Massacre - Chronology of Events

Chronology of Events

Several days before the scheduled Palm Sunday march, the organizers received legal permits for a peaceful protest from José Tormos Diego, the mayor of Ponce. However, upon learning of the planned protest, the colonial governor of Puerto Rico at the time, General Blanton Winship (who had been appointed by US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt) demanded the immediate withdrawal of the permits. Without notice to the organizers, or any opportunity to appeal, or any time to arrange an alternate venue, the permits were abrubtly withdrawn, just before the protest was scheduled to begin.

Colonel Orbeta, Chief of Police under governor Winship, went to Ponce concentrating police units from across the island, among which he included all the machine gunners in the island. For many days, the government had planned to restrict the activities of the nationalists and their leader, Pedro Albizu Campos.

Juana Diaz, Police Chief Guillermo Soldevilla, with 14 policemen, placed himself in front of the marchers. Chief Perez Segarra and Sgt. Rafael Molina, commanding nine policemen who were armed with Thompson submachine guns and tear gas bombs, stood in the back. Chief of Police Antonio Bernardi, heading 11 policemen armed with machine guns, stood in the east; and another group of 12 police, armed with rifles, was placed in the west. According to some reports, police numbered "over 200 heavily armed" guards.

As La Borinqueña, Puerto Rico's national song, was being played, the Ponce branch of the Cadets of the Republic under the command of Tomás López de Victoria and the rest of the demonstrators began to march. The police fired at them from four different positions, for over 15 minutes. About 235 were wounded and nineteen were killed. The dead included 17 men, one woman, and a seven-year-old girl. Some of the dead were demonstrators, while others were simply passers-by. At the present time, only two survivors are still alive, Fernando Velez and his sister Beatriz Velez, nephew and niece of patriots Emeli Velez and Erasmo Vando.

The flag-bearer of the Cadets of the Republic was shot and killed during the massacre. A young girl by the name of Carmen Fernández proceeded to take the flag, but was shot and gravely injured. A young Nationalist cadet by the name of Bolívar Márquez, dragged himself to a wall and despite the fact that he was mortally wounded he wrote with his blood the following message before he succumbed to his wounds:

Many were chased by the police and shot or clubbed at the entrance of their houses as they tried to escape. Others were taken from their hiding places and killed. Leopold Tormes, a member of the Puerto Rico legislature, told reporters how a policeman murdered a nationalist with his bare hands. Dr. Jose N. Gandara, one of the physicians who assisted the wounded, testified that wounded people running away were shot, and that many were again wounded by the clubs and bare fists of the police. No arms were found in the hands of the civilians wounded, nor on the dead ones. About 150 of the demonstrators were arrested immediately afterward; they were later released on bail.

Upon his arrival from Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico senator and future governor Luis Muñoz Marin traveled to the city of Ponce to investigate the massacre. After examining the photograph taken by Carlos Torres Morales and which still had not been made public, he wrote to Ruth Hampton, an official at the United States Department of the Interior, and stated that the photograph clearly showed that the policemen were not shooting at the uniformed Nationalists, but at a terrified crowd in full flight.