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DIJ  Sensitive Cases Unit captain, recently transferred from the SPI, dies in on-the-job accident

On October 13 Captain José Santos Pitti of the Judicial Investigations Directorate (DIJ) was working on a mid-day covert anti-drug operation on Isla Gato, a low-lying, mangrove-covered island off of La Chorrera district's Puerto Caimito that is sometimes used by smugglers. Santos, who had shifted from the Institutional Protection Service (SPI) only four months before, slipped in the muck of the mangrove swamp, fell backwards and struck the back of his neck and head on a mangrove root. Airlifted by police helicopter to the nearby Nicolas Solano Hospital, he was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.

Santos was posthumously promoted to major. Funeral services were held on October 15 at the Iglesia San Francisco de la Caleta in Panama's Coco del Mar neighborhood, but despite receiving the usual full police honors, the event was not covered on the government's websites. Most probably this was to avoid the publication of photos of Santos's colleagues on the Sensitive Investigations Unit.

This year has been a particularly deadly one for Panama's law enforcement agencies. Santos was the eighth police officer to fall in the line of duty in 2010.