Thursday, May 8, 2014. 7 p.m. Guadalupe Ruelas leaves his office at Casa Alianza and heads for the Marriot Hotel where he is invited to have dinner with an international agency.
11:00 p.m. Ruelas, the Director of Casa Alianza, leaves the hotel in a double cabin, Casa Alianza vehicle passing almost in front of the Casa Presidencial, where police motion for him to stop. At that moment, boisterous patrols from the ministries of security and defense are just leaving a press conference following the extradition of “el negro Lobo” to the United States. The entire city is militarized.
11:05 p.m. A motorcycle carrying guards of Corrales collides into the stationary vehicle of Ruelas and those on the motorcycle are apparently injured.
11:10 p.m. Military Police from the Casa Presidencial violently grab Ruelas from his vehicle and throw him to the ground. They kick him brutally. They pick up his feet and drag him to the main gate of the Casa Presidencial. They insult him. They humiliate him. They take his wallet. They take possession of his personal documents and they steal $200 dollars. They take his vehicle and other belongings which were inside the vehicle. They accuse him of driving under the influence of alcohol.
11:45 p.m. Ruelas calls Embassies and journalists that he knows which in turn begin to take action to save his life. The perpetrators take his cell phone and leave him incommunicado. They take him to the police, bloody and in pain. They also accuse him of damaging state property and disobeying authority.
12:00 p.m. Ruelas is handcuffed, mounted in a patrol vehicle as a delinquent and taken to the police station at the first entrance to the Kennedy neighborhood.
The officials on duty apply five breathalyzer tests stating that they are not satisfied with the results. They want to register more than 0.8 units which is the permitable level. They want to register 150 units.
1:10 a.m. Friday, May 9th, the coordinator of COFADEH, Bertha Oliva, arrives at the Kennedy police station to request the detainee so that he can receive immediate medical attention for his wounds and beatings, visible and internal. The police, under the guard and intense observation of armed soldiers and the Honor Guard of Juan Orlando Hernández, are inside of the small detention room. Two journalists and a cameraman are witnesses. The wife and one small son of the victim are present as well as two co-workers.
2:30 in the morning. Ruelas continues to be held. He raises his shirt to show the marks from the beating to journalists. He holds Juan Orlando Hernández responsible for this act of intolerance committed against him. Just 48 hours earlier, Ruelas had stated that in the first 100 days of his term in office, Hernández is a President possessing an excess of power, but is lacking in talent. He lucidly explains to his captors that nothing justifies the violence committed against him and that this is why the country is in the state that it is.
3:00 a.m. The roosters crow. Ruelas drinks hot coffee offered by journalist Marvin Ortiz from Radio Globo. His green shirt with the Casa Alianza logo is soaked with blood. The official in charge of the police station insists on doing another breathalyzer test and tells him to blow hard. Ruelas says that his ribs hurt. The police laugh. Things are tenser. Alot of conversation and he is not turned over for medical attention. Rather, the Fiscal from barrio abajo is called in. Ruelas is forced to take another breathalyzer test; he is read his rights and made to sign a document stating that no one can make a declaration against oneself.
3:30 a.m. The city is silent. Ruelas is put into the back of a pickup patrol truck, his family members follow in another vehicle, and is transported to the old Core 7. Other people also follow the police patrol. Simulation of proceedures.
3:50 a.m. Inside the unified office in the nearby neighborhood, the Fiscal reviews the documents prepared by the police and focuses on the positive result for the alcohol level test; the building is dark and eventually the attorney goes to the balcony and yells to the police to come up and orders them to take the victim for medical attention. The attorney never saw the detainee. There is no forensic doctor on duty.
4:30 a.m. Light of dawn is just appearing on the horizon. Ruelas is admitted to the emergency room of the Hospital Viera, because he has an insurance card for this hospital. A patrol vehicle and two police officers block the principal entrance to the clinic.
5:00 a.m. Photographs of the barbarity appear on the social networks. Inside the hospital, seated on a small bench in front of a white curtain that hangs in front of his father, the small son of Reulas holds an umbrella and a flashlight- he has been at this side of his father since midnight. He draws close to his father and hugs him, gives him a kiss and asks, “Are you going to be alright Papa?” -“We will be alright, son.”
10:00 a.m. Friday morning. The sun is up. Ruelas is discharged and taken back to Core 7. The hospital did urine, blood and saliva tests which did not register the presence of alcohol in the body of the victim.
10:15 a.m. The victim returns to the dismal police station of barrio abajo to confront the regimes system of impunity. He is aware that they will discredit and process him. The police make public the famous, last breathalyzer test, number 6! Ruelas says that he will speak out more strongly; that he will not leave the country – and that he is not afraid.