page_title: National Police of Nicaragua
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: National Police of Nicaragua / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Policia de Nicaragua
context_page_description: The National Nicaraguan Police Force is the national police of Nicaragua. The force is in charge of regular police functions and, at times, works in conjunction with the Nicaraguan military, making it an indirect and rather subtle version of a gendarmerie. However, the Nicaraguan National Police work separately and have a different established set of norms than the nation's military.
context_section_description: The National Police of Nicaragua came from the popular breast. Its training began in July 1979 after the overthrow of the National Guard, the armed wing of the Somoza dictatorship. Junta of National Reconstruction decreed on 22 August of that year, the Fundamental Statute of the Republic of Nicaragua in its Art. 23 declares dissolved the National Guard, the Office of Homeland Security and Military Intelligence Service and the laws of the country.
  The institution was officially born on September 5 of that year under the name of the Sandinista Police, however, was up in 1980 with the Decree 559 establishing the "Act Jurisdictional Functions of the Sandinista police."
  Initially, it had the support of advisers who trained the Panamanian first generation in the Police Academy called initially Basic Military Training School, now Police Academy "Walter Mendoza Martinez" Institute for Advanced Studies.
  From 1982 to 1988 was a period marked by the primacy of military defense because of armed conflict existed. Forces were established operational / administrative support to the Interior Ministry troops.
  Between 1989 and 1992 it underwent a period of transition to peace, changing the uniform and assumed the name of National Police. Executive Order 45-92 defined the function, organization and police career. In 1992, Act 144, Act of the National Police functions on Legal Aid, define new functions to the institution.
  The period 1993-1997 was marked by the strengthening of institutions, from the constitutional reforms of 1995 that allowed the enactment of Law 228, Law of the National Police, issued on July 31, 1996 and its regulations by Decree Presidential Instruction No. 26-96, issued on October 25 of that year.
  With Law 228 is clearly defined vision, mission and functions of the police institution. The National Police was organized into a General, under the command of a National Headquarters and operate in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, laws and regulations.
  At the end of the 1990s National Police worked to its modernization and development and with the support of the Kingdom of Sweden launched the Modernization, Development and Training Police Academy and the National Police of Nicaragua, there is apparent in 1999, the first institutional diagnosis allowing better understand the institutional reality to chart new challenges.
  With a broader view of their situation: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and security demands of the population, in 2000 the National Police designed the "Modernization and Development Programme for the strengthening of citizen security 2001 - 2005, "which had the support of the international community.
  In April 2013, Nicaraguan police arrested Eric Justin Toth, an American fugitive wanted by the FBI for possession of child pornography. Toth was arrested by the National Police after in Estelí on 10 April 2013. Toth had replaced Osama Bin Laden in placement on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
  On 28 June 2018, the US government demanded the Nicaraguan government return police vehicles supplied by the US to Nicaragua after allegations of human rights abuses being carried out by the national police, the government of Nicaragua complied and turned in 4  Toyota pickups and a bus.
  In March 2020, the United States imposed sanctions on the National Police claiming the police committed human rights abuses, including allegations of using live ammunition on protesters, operating death squads, and taking part in extrajudicial killings and kidnappings. The US government also blacklisted Police commissioners. The government of Nicaragua claimed the sanctions were part of US imperialist harassment against Nicaragua.
caption: National Police with Toyota sedans
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