Ponce Massacre - The Investigation and The Hays Commission

The Investigation and The Hays Commission

Subsequent investigations of the event reached conflicting conclusions on whether the police or the marchers fired the first shots. Governor Winship applied pressure on the district attorney's office in charge of the investigation. He also requested that the public prosecutor from Ponce, Rafael Pérez Marchand, "arrest more Nationalists," and that no charges be filed against the police. In response to this pressure, prosecutor Perez Marchand resigned, for not being allowed by the governor to conduct a proper investigation.

A government investigation into the incident drew few conclusions. A second, independent investigation ordered by the US Commission for Civil Rights (May 5, 1937) was led by Arthur Garfield Hays (a member of the ACLU), together with Fulgencio Pinero, Emilio Belaval, Jose Davila Rice, Antonio Ayuyo Valdivieso, Manuel Diaz Garcia, and Franscisco M. Zeno. This investigation concluded that the events on March 21 did, in fact, constitute a massacre. The report harshly criticized the repressive tactics and massive civil rights violations by Governor Blanton Winship.

After viewing the photograph of the massacre taken by Carlos Torres Morales, Hayes in his report to the American Civil Liberties Union wondered why the government in its investigation did not use the photograph which was among two that were widely published. According to Hayes, the photograph clearly showed 18 armed policeman at the corner of Aurora and Marina streets, ready to fire upon a group of innocent bystanders. The image also showed the white smoke in the barrel of a policeman's revolver, as he fired upon the unarmed people. The Hays committee could not understand why the policemen fired directly at the crowd, and not at the Cadets.