Come on, just tell us it's your gun

The scene: An isolated beach in the Dominican Republic

The characters: You (a teenager just trying to stay out of trouble), your teenage brother, several policemen

The plot: Policemen have committed a crime involving a now "dirty" gun and they are looking for someone to attach the gun to in order to avoid police corruption charges. They find you and your brother walking along a street, force you into their car, and take you to an isolated beach where they demand that you admit that this gun that you have never seen before is yours. You refuse. One policeman suggests shooting your brother to encourage you to confess to being the gun's owner. The police shoot your brother in his kneecaps repeatedly. You still refuse to say the gun is yours. They shoot you in both knees as well. The policemen then receive a call and leave immediately. Perhaps it was someone who saw the policemen force you and your brother into their car or perhaps there was a crime that demanded their immediate attention. Whatever the case, this call most certainly saved you and your brother's lives. You make it to the public hospital in Puerto Plata and tell your story.


This story sounds like fiction, but while I was visiting the public hospital in Puerto Plata last week my father introduced me to two young men who had just starred in this exact drama. They were still in fear for their lives but by this point so many people knew of their story it would be difficult for their murders to go unnoticed.

While the Dominican Republic is generally a safe country, tales of police brutality and corruption have echoed from within it's borders since I can remember.

Another haunting story told by a Dominican man on a public, online forum further convinces me that those two young brothers were fortunate:

"Well just last night a friend of mine got killed by the police right in front of my house. They were looking for a man that killed a policeman and decided that he might be it since to their knowledge [my friend] looked like the killer.
As some of you might know, when a police officer (if they can be call that) is killed, the police department starts going through every neighborhood to look for the killer, well I guess it was time for this poor guy, who was actually on vacation for the first time since he moved to Spain.
He was sitting en la galleria (front porch) of the house when the police car passed by. One of them said doesn't he look like the killer and the other one said oh think he does. They drag him out of the house and shoot both of his legs. Then another officer came in and said "Pa' eso matalo" (for that kill him) and shot his head." (http://www.dr1.com/forums/dr-debates/49166-police-brutality-dom-rep.html)


The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published in March of 2002 (incidentally, this report appears to be identical to the one published February of 2001) illustrates what a chronic problem this has been:

"...Police committed at least 250 extrajudicial killings. It is difficult for any outside observer to quantify the exact number of victims of extrajudicial killings each year; included in this number are civilians who were killed in alleged "exchanges of gunfire" with police. The police fail to cooperate with civilian authorities in many ways, which made quantifying the problem very difficult. For example, the police do not provide Public Ministry officials with reports on investigations of citizens killed in confrontations with police; police rarely documented citizen killings in accordance with minimum investigations or crime scene standards; police denied civilian authorities, including prosecutors requesting information, transcripts of police tribunal hearings that process these cases in secret; and the police have been known to publicly fire officials involved in these incidents, only to reinstate them quietly later."

The report goes further in an attempt to explain the probable causes of these police lead killings claiming that "extrajudicial killings stem from the lack of basic education, poor training, and weak discipline of the members of the police force. These problems are aggravated by low pay and the fact that the Government's budgetary allocation for the police is too low to support the higher recruiting standards needed and to provide adequate training for police. For example, new recruits fire only one round of ammunition during training, and there is no coherent policy on the use of deadly force or rules of engagement by the police." (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/wha/8345.htm)


Some people question the involvement of police in the sex trade so prevalent in this country, accusing the police of trafficking pre-teens for the booming Dominican sex tourism industry (an industry Rush Limbaugh is allegedly a fan of?!)

Dominican president Leonel Fernandez is reportedly attempting to take the issue of police corruption seriously but his focus is primarily against their involvement in the drug trade. One can only hope that cracking down on police corruption will also assist in the elimination of cases of police brutality such as the one I saw the aftermath of.

The Dominican Republic, like every country, is complex. It's the place of my earliest childhood memories and its embodiment of both beauty and brutality is something I've been coming to terms with all my life.