ICE and federal marshals search for mother and son suspected of fatally shooting a soldier in Puerto Rico over a traffic dispute

By Carlos Tolentino Rosario

PUERTO RICO – The United States Federal Marshals Service reported on Saturday afternoon that they hope to find out soon the whereabouts of the mother and son accused of murdering the military Jancarlo Rivera Lugo 24 years old, last 23 November, in the El Tuque neighborhood of Ponce.

The agency’s spokesman in Puerto Rico, Antonio Torres, assured El Nuevo Día that the search for Ana Inés Napoleoni Medina, 24 years , and Jeromy Pietri Napoleoni, from 24, is ahead.

“The search is advanced and we hope to obtain results very soon. We have a group of agents from our office together with the Puerto Rico Police providing specialized assistance,” he said in written statements sent to this newspaper.

“If we don’t encounter mishaps, we should obtain positive results very soon ”, he reiterated.

For his part, the spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE-HSI) in Puerto Rico, Alek Pacheco, commented that they continue to support the Puerto Rico Police Bureau. Puerto Rico with the personnel they request and with the intelligence analysts.

The Ponce Prosecutor’s Office filed the following charges against the mother and her son: first degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and violations of the Weapons Law, for carrying, aiming and firing automatic weapons. At the moment her whereabouts are unknown.

The case in question dates back to that date, specifically, in the afternoon on the street 14 of the Nueva Vida sector. The place is known by the Police as an area where a drug point operates.

From the preliminary information offered by the authorities, Rivera Lugo, who was a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve , was shot at by more than one person, because -supposedly- he was traveling against traffic.

Previously, the director of the Ponce Criminal Investigation Corps, Daniel Justiniano, told this outlet that Rivera Lugo was rebuked by a woman who lives in front of the place where he was shot, and Moments later, some men approached until he was attacked.

“What happens is that these individuals have kidnapped that community,” Justiniano said. “There is a well-known point of sale for controlled substances. There is information that they have forcibly removed people who lived there, because they did not agree that there is a drug point”.

Although the incident was initially reported as an assault, A call from the Damas de Ponce Hospital alerted the Police that a young man who had been shot had arrived at the institution and died as a result of his injuries, for which reason the case was immediately investigated as a murder.