Irvin Flores Rodríguez
Biography
Irvin Flores Rodríguez was one of the four Puerto Rican Nationalists who attacked the U.S. House of Representatives on March 1, 1954. He served 25 years in federal prison before President Carter commuted his sentence on September 6, 1979. He returned to Puerto Rico and remained active in the independence movement until his death in 1994.
On March 1, 1954, four members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party — Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, and Irvin Flores Rodríguez — entered the U.S. Capitol, took seats in the visitors' gallery overlooking the House chamber, unfurled a Puerto Rican flag, and opened fire on the Representatives below. Thirty rounds were fired in roughly thirty seconds; five Representatives were wounded but all survived. The attack was timed to draw international attention to the Inter-American Conference of the Organization of American States then opening in Caracas, and to challenge the U.S. claim that Puerto Rico had become a self-governing 'commonwealth.' All four were arrested at the scene, tried in federal court in Washington, D.C. and again in New York for related conspiracy charges, and sentenced to consecutive terms amounting effectively to life in federal prison. President Jimmy Carter commuted Andrés Figueroa Cordero's sentence in October 1977 (he was terminally ill with cancer and died in 1979); Carter commuted the remaining three sentences on September 6, 1979. They returned to Puerto Rico to a crowd estimated at 5,000 at San Juan International Airport.
Puerto Rican Nationalist and one of the four armed attackers who fired on the US House of Representatives from the visitors' gallery on March 1, 1954. Convicted of assault with intent to kill and seditious conspiracy, he served 25 years in federal prison before being pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in September 1979 alongside Lebrón and Cancel Miranda. He returned to Puerto Rico and remained active in Nationalist politics until his death in 1994.
Puerto Rican nationalist imprisoned for the 1954 armed attack on the U.S. House of Representatives; one of five Nationalists who refused to seek pardons implying acceptance of U.S. rule over Puerto Rico. The Black Panther Vol. 17 no.13 (1977). Released in 1979. [Source: The Black Panther (Black Panther Party newspaper), v17 no.13; digitized at marxists.org — https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/index.htm]
