Opinion ID: 203690
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government Center Detainment

Text: The first Comagro employee to arrive at the construction site on November 26 was Victor Santiago (Santiago), the project foreman during the last two years of construction. Ten workers arrived sometime later, around 7:00 a.m. Using keys from the Comagro office, Santiago unlocked the project site and assigned the workers to tasks on the first floor of the parking facility, the fourth floor of the tower, the mezzanine, and the plaza. Francisco Méndez-Ayala (Méndez-Ayala), the project supervisor and Méndez-Matos's son, arrived at the site around 8:00 a.m. Méndez-Ayala went to the parking facility, where he supervised workers cleaning up and patching cracks in the concrete. Sometime around 8:30 a.m., Santiago observed the Mayor talking on his cell phone outside the government center. The Mayor circled the building, but did not enter. Work continued until around 9:00 a.m., when the Comagro workers took a fifteen-minute break. After the break, Méndez-Ayala returned to the first floor of the parking facility, where he was later joined by Santiago. Around 9:30 a.m., Mayor O'Neill left his office in the old city hall and returned to the government center. As he approached the building's parking facility, he noticed that one of its rolling gates was open. Concerned about this, he called the city public works director, the director of operations, and project inspector Dávila, but reached none of them. He made no effort to contact Comagro or Méndez-Matos. At some point, however, the Mayor contacted the municipal police. Lieutenant Wilfredo Martinez, who was off duty at the time, was called to the scene, where he received orders from the Mayor to clear Comagro workers from the building, establish control of the three exits, and prevent anyone else from entering the building. Other officers arrived, including, at some point, both the police commissioner and the police commander. The Mayor then entered the parking facility through the open rolling gate, partially closing it behind him. Accompanying him were ten to fourteen police officers, some of them armed, several police motorcycles, and several four-track vehicles driven by police officers. When Santiago and Méndez-Ayala saw the Mayor approach them in the parking facility, the Mayor appeared irate. He yelled that their work was garbage, shit, and that Comagro was the shittiest company he had seen in his life. He told the employees that they were all fired, and that they should stop work and leave. Turning to officers in the four-track vehicles, he directed them to drive through cement freshly poured on the parking facility floor. Meanwhile, outside, additional patrol cars began to arrive and position themselves at the entrance to the parking facility. Taken aback, Méndez-Ayala asked the Mayor what was going on and why they should stop working. In response, Méndez-Ayala testified, the Mayor changed his mind. Instead of removing the Comagro employees from the site, he detained them there: All of a sudden, he changedchanged his mind. And I said, well, hey, wait a minute. What's going on? And I saidI mean, I tried to talk with him to see, but then all of sudden he changed again and said we were all detained and he said that we were all under arrest. [3] The Mayor ordered the officers posted at the rolling gate to shut it. He told the employees that they were not to touch any of their tools, which were being impounded by the city. He then left the parking facility and went up a flight of stairs to the first floor of the tower. Méndez-Ayala, Santiago and several workers remained behind, where they were detained by armed police officers. Comagro workers who had been assigned elsewhere in the project soon joined them, escorted there by police. Méndez-Ayala was then able to convince a police officer in the parking facility to escort him to the Mayor's location in the tower. Once there, Méndez-Ayala again tried to reason with the Mayor, telling him that he was doing things the wrong way.... And he looked at me disdainfully, as if he could care less. Possibly during this same discussion, or during a later detention discussion (the sequence is unclear), Méndez-Ayala again asked the Mayor his reason for detaining Comagro's employees. This time, the Mayor revealed his frustration with the company: And I told [the Mayor], well, listen now, what's going on? What's the problem? What have we done? And he told me that he was really upset, that he had done everything to work with us ... and we were bringing up an arbitration case. And he got really upset, and hehe said, just go. Just go. Just go. Go to hell. And just leave. It was then 11:30 a.m., and the Comagro employees had been detained for about two hours. Shortly thereafter, Méndez-Ayala, Santiago, and the Comagro workers were allowed to leave the site. After being told that their tools would remain impounded, Méndez-Ayala again objected, protesting to the Mayor that the impounding was an abuse of power and that the subcontractors would be unable to work elsewhere without their tools. The police allowed workers to take personal tools, but several other tools, as well as a company car, remained in city possession until days later. Just as the detention was ending, Méndez-Matos arrived at the project site. Méndez-Ayala had called his father thirty minutes earlier, telling him that the Mayor had arrived with police officers, body-guards, and patrol cars, and that he himself had been arrested and Comagro's equipment impounded. The situation, he said, was a mess, and he didn't know what it was all about. The animosity and hostility of the[] police agents, and the mayor himself worried Méndez-Ayala, and he asked his father to stay away from the project because things look[] ugly here. The phone call enormously concerned Méndez-Matos, who feared for his son's life. He drove to the government center, bringing a camera. Méndez-Matos parked some distance from the government center and approached on foot. At the project site, he saw police officers and a whole bunch of patrol cars. Walking around the project, Méndez-Matos began taking pictures, including several of the patrol cars stationed outside the parking facility. A police officer told him to stop, but Méndez-Matos just went ahead and walked on. As he continued around the outside of the project, Méndez-Matos met Méndez-Ayala and Santiago. Méndez-Ayala described his father as really concerned and somewhat agitated, and asked him to leave. The Mayor's people, he believed, were looking for trouble. I was concerned they would beat [Méndez-Matos] and that I might be beaten up as well. Méndez-Matos refused to leave, telling his son, I'm not going to leave you here so that you can get killed. When the Mayor appeared with several officers, Méndez-Matos approached him. As he did this, Méndez-Ayala said, the police officers gripped their holsters sort of as in a threat. Afraid of the possibility that the Mayor's guards would injure his father, Méndez-Ayala testified that he felt impotent, flustered, fearful. According to Méndez-Matos, the police officers crowded all around me, and I looked around, I saw one of them gripping his firearm, and I felt fear. He described the confrontation as follows: [T]he mayor was coming towards me. And he was therehe was being followed by his body guard and by another guard. And he camehe was coming over with a very bad demeanor, and proffering dirty words. And I was very upset, and I faced him, squared off with him. And I was very upset about everything, because of the way they had treated my people and the way they had treated my son, and in the face of this abuse of power, and the manner in which he had treated my son. And that's when my son came over to me and saidbecause you see the guards had surrounded me ... and my son said, look, dad, just leave ... because what they want to do is give you any number of blows. They want to club you.... I withdrew. Méndez-Matos left the project site but remained in Guaynabo. Even after he left, he said, he feared for his son's life. The Mayor was doing something entirely illogical, and when someone does something as illogical as that raid, then one can expect anything. At trial, in March 2007, Méndez-Ayala testified that he feared reprisal and was still scared.... Anything can happen ... with these people who have so much influence and more so now. [4]