Chief of Police Francis E. Riggs

Francis E. Riggs

Chief of Police Francis Riggs was shot and killed in an ambush by two Puerto Rican nationalists while returning from mass at the San Juan Cathedral.

The men opened fire on his car, fatally wounding him. Despite being wounded, the policeman who was chauffering him pursued the suspects and both were apprehended. They were taken to police headquarters where they admitted to assassinating Chief Riggs in retaliation for an incident in November 1935 in which four people were killed by police near the University of Puerto Rico.

Both suspects were shot and killed when they reached for guns in an attempt to escape from police headquarters.

Chief Riggs was a U.S. Army veteran who had been appointed to serve as the police chief of the Puerto Rico Police Department in 1933. He was survived by his wife.