Massachusetts sends law enforcement team to Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has accepted an offer from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to deploy 69 Massachusetts police officers to Puerto Rico, 32 of whom are from Boston.

“The deployment of these law enforcement officers from Massachusetts will provide the citizens of Puerto Rico an added sense of security during recovery efforts,” Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said in a Wednesday press release from Gov. Charlie Baker and Polito.

Puerto Rico requested aid through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact system and Massachusetts bid on the request, wrote Felix Browne, Public Safety and Security spokesperson, in an email.

“Baker has made it clear to MEMA and the Guard that they are to make available all resources at their disposal to assist the people of Puerto Rico,” Browne wrote.

The officers are being deployed in three two-week waves, Chris Besse, MEMA social media and public information coordinator, said. The first team of 24 left Oct. 7, the second team will depart in two weeks and the third in four weeks. There are eight officers from Boston that are departing each wave.

“Once they get down, the local police department will use them as necessary to do whatever law enforcement functions they need help with, which may change over the course of the deployment,” Besse said.

Besse said Puerto Rico requested officers to be bilingual and available for many weeks at a time.

“At least half of them Puerto Rico was looking for them to be bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish,” Besse said. “Beyond that it was really up to the departments themselves to determine if they had availability.”

Besse said they used EMAC, a state-to-state mutual aid agreement in which states or territories can send aid to each other, effectively addressing the current needs of Puerto Ricans.

“MEMA is sort of the coordinating agency for the EMAC process,” Besse said. “We reached out to local and state police departments in Massachusetts and asked them what they might have available for offers to send on these missions to Puerto Rico and then we compiled all the responses we got back from those departments and bundled them all together in an offer.”

Besse said Puerto Rico will reimburse MEMA at a later date for the costs of deployment.

“The police departments in Massachusetts send MEMA their bills of what the costs are for the deployments and then we package all those costs together and send Puerto Rico the consolidated bill for what that total cost will be,” Besse said.

Several Boston residents said they are grateful for the state government offering aid and hope Massachusetts can effectively assist Puerto Ricans struggling in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Cillian Clinton, 22, of Roxbury, said he thinks active aid sent by the state will help deliver more relief which would not otherwise get to the island.

“I don’t think individual’s overall are just going to go down to Puerto Rico themselves and do it,” Clinton said. “They’re going to need a greater power or force or authority to actually get people to go down there.”

Clinton said although Massachusetts is not nearby, we still have the ability to organize relief efforts.

“Massachusetts has the authority to implement a plan and a structure to actually send people down there,” Clinton said. “So I do think that it makes more sense”

Steven Lerman, 36, of Allston, said he is happy to see the state making efforts to help when the federal government, he thinks, is not.

“I’m glad to see cities doing it when our federal government’s not doing anything,” Lerman said. “Unfortunately, there’s people who are completely put-off by this and I think it’s a shame they’re going through that and if I can do anything to help I’m all for it. They’re Americans, so I don’t see why not.”

Joseph Macdonald, 58, of East Boston, said he thinks the federal government has failed in its response.

“Our government is letting Puerto Rico down,” Macdonald said. “We should be there, on the ground, taking care of them. They are United States citizens, although they should take statehood too.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article referred to Boston resident Cillian Clinton with a female pronoun “she” when “he” is the correct pronoun for this resident.