Biography
Martín González Ruiz was one of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party members charged with the murder of two policemen killed during the police massacre of Nationalist marchers at Ponce on 21 March 1937 (Palm Sunday), in which police killed some nineteen unarmed civilians and wounded about two hundred. He was imprisoned roughly six months in the La Princesa fortress in San Juan under the Ponce Massacre murder indictment, though most defendants were not even present at the shooting; the mass prosecution under Gov. Blanton Winship's colonial administration was widely condemned as political repression of the independence movement.
Page 17’s March 24, 1937 prosecutor report lists Martin Gonzalez, alias Lete, among those arrested during the preceding two days’ Ponce investigation for riot, carrying weapons and violating Law 14 of July 8, 1936, with $500 bail. The matching Ponce context and name connect this abbreviated form to Martín González Ruiz’s existing case; the report is preserved as a contemporary charge-stage detail rather than an additional custody episode. It does not independently substantiate the profile’s exact March 21 arrest day or roughly six-month duration. Source: https://www.congress.gov/75/crecb/1937/06/03/GPO-CRECB-1937-pt5-v81-11.pdf
The September 21, 1937 New Masses editorial individually lists this defendant among ten Nationalists then facing the Ponce murder trial and reports that the group had been imprisoned for six months in La Princesa under collective bail totaling $250,000. This is a contemporary approximate custody-to-date report, not a completed six-month sentence, exact admission date, individual bail amount or final conviction. Its description of a hand-picked jury and government campaign is the editorial’s allegation. The existing prosecution is retained without a duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1937/v24n13-sep-21-1937-NM.pdf#page=18