In the early morning hours of April 30, the usual quiet of NW 16th Street in Washington DC, home to several embassies and just two miles from the White House, was interrupted by a shooting. The attack was directed at the headquarters of the Cuban embassy in the United States.
The incident lasted a few minutes, the now detained Alexander Alazo shot 32 times with an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle and a few minutes later he was arrested by officers of the Metropolitan Police Department without offering resistance. Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas gave OnCuba an interview on the subject.
Ambassador, are there usually police posts guarding the Cuban embassy in Washington?
No. In this case, the Metropolitan Police Department evaluates the need for the presence of one or more police vehicles in embassy areas, which are not there all the time. It depends on what they call “threat appreciation,” they determine it for each embassy. So far, they have determined that a presence of one of their vehicles, or officers, is not required permanently. It’s not similar to what happens in Havana, where there is protection for the American embassy all the time.
Some reports indicate that there were around ten people at the embassy at the time, is this usually the case? What security measures did you take?
In this place we have the embassy building and an adjoining house that is within the same property. People linked to security, and other workers with administrative tasks remain here. This is an amount that fluctuates depending on whether we have more or less visiting personnel. At that time that was the amount. We permanently have security officials inside the embassy. That is, we have eyes and ears at night, and during the day too. Those on guard were the first to notice what was happening. It was a very serious event, but it lasted a relatively short time, barely four or five minutes. It was the time they had to get an idea of what was happening, whether it was an isolated event or not, whether it was outside or within the perimeter. Whenever it is an incident outside the perimeter, it is up to the local authorities to act and warn the people they have to warn at that time, and internally alert those they have to alert.
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