Rafael Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rican nationalist who opened fire on the US Capitol, dies at 89

In the frantic minutes before the attackers were brought under control, they injured five members of Congress, all of whom survived. The same is true for the armed men, the last of whom Rafael Cancel Miranda died on March 2 at 89 years of age. Alternately labeled a terrorist and a freedom fighter, he had dedicated his life to the cause of Puerto Rico's independence and had spent a quarter of a century behind bars before President Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence.

His death at home in San Juan, the capital of the American territories, was reported by the newspaper El Nuevo Da and confirmed in a Facebook post by his son Rafael Cancel Vzquez, who did not cite a cause.

While Mr. Cancel Miranda has faded from memory in Washington, where the Capitol is now heavily fortified with metal detectors and police, he has acquired almost mythical status in Puerto Rico. Appearing in his white guayabera summer shirt, he became a staple of political rallies, wrote books, and refused to apologize for a mass shoot that Martin once called the craziest scene. of the whole history of Congress.

In interviews, Cancel Miranda and his gun-branding associates Lolita Lebrn, Andrs Figueroa Cordero and Irvin Flores Rodrguez said they were fighting to free Puerto Ricans from the yoke of American colonialism. The island became under American control after the Spanish American War and became a Commonwealth in 1952, although for Mr. Cancel Miranda and many others, she never achieved real self-determination .

We never controlled our own country, he told the New York Times in 2016, while the independence movement sought to reassert itself in Puerto Rico. Earlier that year, Congress established a financial watchdog to manage the islands' crippling debt, drawing accusations that a dictatorship would decide his fate and bring Governor Alejandro J. Garca Padilla to appear before a committee of United Nations, where he actually declared that Puerto Rico was still an American colony.

Mr. Cancel Miranda, who was over 6 feet tall but was known by the diminutive nickname Pito, was immersed in the independence movement from a young age. Son of a businessman and fiery leader of the Nationalist Party, he spent two years in a Florida prison after refusing to join the military and allegedly listened to radio reports from behind bars that anti-colonial revolts rocked Puerto Rico in 1950. Later that year, supporters of Harvard-educated nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman.

Commonwealth status for the island quickly followed, and in 1953 the United Nations removed Puerto Rico from its list of non-self-governing territories.

It was when the nationalists said, "We have to send a message," Cancel Miranda told The Times. This is the reason for the attack on Congress.

The shooting was reportedly orchestrated by Lebrn, who later said that she and her fellow attackers had gone to die, not to kill. A note found in his purse called the actions of his groups a cry of victory in our struggle for independence. Mr. Cancel Miranda, who was then living in Brooklyn, said he had made peace with death and assumed he would never see his children again after purchasing a one-way train ticket to Washington .

After having lunch at Union Station, he and his attacking colleagues got lost, asked a pedestrian for instructions, and finally made it to the Capitol. A security guard asked them if they were wearing cameras before allowing them to enter the House gallery, where they were seated near a group of sixth grade students and quickly started shooting Lugers and an automatic pistol while Lebrn was screaming, Viva Puerto Rico Libre!

About 16 shots were fired, according to a Congressional story, before the attackers were brought under control by a group including representative James E. Van Zandt (R-Pa.), Then handcuffed and dragged in front of journalists on the steps of the Capitol.

Some gangsters cannot break the friendship of the big nations, said Martin the next day, while the governor of Puerto Ricos repudiated the attack and the politicians urged unity.

The five injured Congressmen returned to the House and the assailants received sentences that threatened to keep them behind bars until their death. Mr. Cancel Miranda, who said that most of the injured were injured by my weapon, was sent to Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay and later to prisons in Kansas and Illinois.

His sentence was commuted in 1979, as were those of Lebrn, Flores and Oscar Collazo, who had attempted to assassinate Truman. (Figueroa Cordero had been released two years earlier after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.)

Newspaper reports have suggested that their release was part of a prisoner swap for CIA operatives imprisoned in Cuba. The Carter administration cited humanitarian considerations and the former prisoners undertook a tour of across the United States, appearing before crowds in Chicago and New York.

While the popularity of the nationalist movement declined during his prison term, Mr. Cancel Miranda insisted that he would continue to support violent actions for independence if necessary.

Bad work for the revolution until my death, he told the Washington Post after his release, and if I'm lucky, I may find some time to sing to the kids.

Mr. Cancel Miranda was born in Maygez, on the west coast of Puerto Ricos, on July 18, 1930. His mother died when he was a child, and his father ran a furniture store while periodically hosting Albizu Campos at family house. Full information on the survivors was not immediately available.

On Facebook, Mr. Cancel Mirandas' son Rafael remembered asking his father how he got on the train to Washington when he knew he would probably be kill.

The love, the love I feel for you, for your mom, for all Puerto Ricans, replied Cancel Miranda. Courage is born of love and I love my people. I am Puerto Rican and for you I give my life. I prefer to hug and recite verses, but if the moment requires bullets, I would do it again.