Albizu y Campos Arrested for Link With Recent Shooting in Congress
Pedro Albizu y Campos '16 is behind bars this morning in San Juan, P.R., following his arrest early Saturday morning after a frenzied, two hour long gun battle and siege of his second-story apartment and arsenal.
Campos and four others were among the 30-odd Nationalists rounded up in the weekend crackdown precipitated by the shooting in the House of Representatives a week ago.
Gov. Luis Munoz Marin said the round-up had been instituted after a five day study of the Nationalists' connections with the shooting. In Saturday's report on Albizu Campos, the CRIMSON placed the blame for the attack on his management of the small, fanatical party since 1930.
Police smashed a hole in the door of Campos' apartment when he refused to let them in and were immediately fired upon through the opening. Reportedly, over 100 bullets were exchanged in the ensuing fight, Campos and his four companions firing through the shuttered windows on each side of the apartment.
A heavy barrage of tear gas shells finally quelled the Nationalists. Campos was carried from the building, his head and feet swaddled in towels, mumbling "Estoy asfixiado" (I am chocked). The towels were his protection from the "electron rays" he has recently protested the United States is directing against him.
The round-up had been planned by top government officials, headed by police Col. Salvador Roig Friday afternoon and night.
colonel Roig had apparently been at this conference Friday night when the CRIMSON attempted unsuccessfully to contact him concerning the immment arrest. He was reported "tied up" at that time.
Campos was president of the cosmopolitan Club before attending Law School.
This timespace is inspired by the 7th chapter of the book How to Hide an Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr. It tells the life of Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos in the context of other nationalist movements and U.S. interventions in Latin America.
