Honoring fallen police officers

Photo by the Presidencia

Homage to fallen police officers

On November 2 --- the Day of the Dead in Panama and most of the rest of Latin America --- President Martinelli went to the Centro de Enseñanza Superior Dr. Justo Arosemena (Panama's advanced police academy, which is at the former Fort Kobbe). There, at the monument to martyred law enforcement officers he rendered homage to the 103 men and women who as of that morning had fallen in the line of duty since the police force was reorganized in the wake of the 1989 US invasion.

That afternoon in the Los Caobos neighborhood of Panama City's corregimiento of Juan Diaz, National Police First Sergeant Carlos Alberto Mosquera was moonlighting as a welder when a group of young men attempted to rob the business on whose remodeling he was working. Mosquera, who had been working in the San Felipe sub-station, fought off the robbers but was shot three times by large-caliber bullets and died at the scene. Another citizen who lived nearby was wounded. So far four suspects have been arrested in connection with the crime. Mosquera was 43 years old and a 20-year veteran of the police force. He is survived by his three children.

Four days later, First Sergeant Yuli Peralta of the National Frontier Service was on a flood relief mission to the El Coco community of Darien's Jaque district with fellow border police when he fell into a rain-swollen stream, was swept away by the current and drowned. Peralta, who was from Santa Fe, Veraguas, was 38 years old, served as a police officer for 14 years, and is survived by his mother.

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