 Since the entire Insular Police took their orders from Riggs, the Nationalists considered him responsible for the massacre.Colonel Elisha Francis Riggs was born in Georgetown, a historic neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C.. Riggs was a former officer in the United States Army who was appointed Chief of Police of Puerto Rico in 1933, by Blanton Winship, the U.S. appointed governor of Puerto Rico.He was an unpopular police chief, stemming from his decisions to repress the growing sugar cane labor movement and the Nationalist Pro-Independence Movement.