Nicole Muniz
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Nicole Muniz (1987–August, 2003) was a Puerto Rican student who became famous after her murder as an innocent bystander to gang warfare. Her case has reinvigorated debates concerning the death penalty and its applications in Puerto Rican laws.
Muniz was the daughter of Nestor Muniz, an affluent San Juan businessman. She lived a posh life, and, according to her friends, she had good grades in school and was looking forward to graduating high school in May of 2004 and going to college.
According to police records, Nicole was murdered as she was driving off an intersection near a bridge in Los Paseos, San Juan. Passing by a "residencial" in Las Cumbres (project apartments area), she was caught in the cross-fire between two rival gangs. She was fatally wounded with a shot to her chest. Her Pathfinder and other cars were also damaged by the shootings' bullets.
The day after she died, her death was on the front pages of the Puerto Rican newspapers El Vocero and El Nuevo Dia. As soon as the news hit the streets, people from around the island began to question the motive behind a well-off girl visiting an impoverished area like a project, because projects in Puerto Rico are usually used by drug dealers to sell large amounts of their drugs. The officially-known and most widely-believed reason is that Nicole passed by the "residencial" that fateful midnight after a long night of studying and doing homework for a class in Italian with her former boyfriend, later becoming an innocent victim of drug warfare as she left the area.
Nicole has become a symbol of the Puerto Rican government's fight against crime. Her photo has been posted on large billboards in each of the 75 cities in Puerto Rico, and, because a scripture below her photo mentions her name, the general public knows her just as "Nicole". A song written and performed by young artist and singer Joel Pierluisi, from the widely popular reggae band Umoja, was dedicated to her and explained the meaning of Nicole had in the lives of many teenagers. A series of events were promoted on the island to fight crime, such as the famous "Unidos por la Paz" march which included representation from many high schools and peaceful organizations around the island.
Five men were found guilty of her death, and it is generally suspected that one of them might have been a sniper who was shooting from a nearby roof that night. While some of the men showed remorse and asked for forgiveness from Nicole's family after being sentenced, they nevertheless will serve long jail terms.
Reinstituting the death penalty would require an amendment to the Constitution of Puerto Rico.
