By YAISHA VARGAS
The Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico- Police officers who arrested six college students for painting anti-FBI graffiti may have overreacted, said the chief of Puerto Rico’s police department.
The students were arrested on March 13 after painting “FBI out, FBI murderer” below a bridge in the northwestern city of Aguadilla to protest the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the leader of a pro-independence militant group, who died in a September shoot-out with the FBI.
“Our office has given no order that prohibits free expression,” Police Chief Pedro Toledo told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila also condemned the arrests, saying, “No one should be penalized for the content of what they write, though there are places where it is illegal to write on or damage property.”
Two other groups of students were freed after painting anti-FBI graffiti on the Department of Homeland Security office in Aguidilla. Authorities on March 8 decided not to press charges the students who painted on the building.
Many people in the U.S. Caribbean territory have criticized the FBI after the slaying of Ojeda Rios at a farmhouse in southeastern Puerto Rico. He was was wanted for the 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo armored truck depot in West Hartford, Connecticut.
The FBI said Ojeda Rios shot at agents first, but his widow said the FBI fired the first rounds.