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Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Via Wikimedia Commons

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Liberation

1933–2005

Macheteros leader killed by FBI agents in 2005 on El Grito de Lares anniversary, sparking outrage across Puerto Rico

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was a Puerto Rican independence activist who co-founded Los Macheteros (the Boricua Popular Army). A musician who once played with La Sonora Ponceña, he became politically radicalized. On September 23, 2005, the anniversary of the Grito de Lares, he was fatally shot by the FBI at his home in Hormigueros; the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission later ruled his death an "illegal killing."