Convicted Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) terrorist leader Oscar Lopez Rivera appeared on a float at the front of the Puerto Rican Day Parade with New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, The New York Post reported.
Parade organizers initially tried to honor Lopez Rivera with an official award, but a mass pull out by corporate sponsors and key regular attendees over that move caused Lopez Rivera to decline the honor. However, Lopez Rivera was highlighted just by riding on the front display that moved down 5th Avenue.
Oscar Lopez Rivera has arrived to Puerto Rican Day Parade. A lot of jostling as he got off van. @nytimes pic.twitter.com/sKVwV6FfRa
— Luis Ferré Sadurní (@luisferre) June 11, 2017
“I feel good about being here,” Lopez Rivera said to reporters as he exited a van to enter the parade. He pounded his chest yelling, “Que viva Puerto Rico!”
“This parade is for the Puerto Rican public,” he added.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio previously insisted Lopez Rivera would not receive any award and that he would not march in the parade if that award was given, but ultimately, de Blasio marched in the parade, the Post noted, and maintained a 10 block distance from Lopez Rivera.
Mayor @BilldeBlasio has arrived at Puerto Rican Day Parade. He leads his own delegation separate from controversial militant Oscar Lopez. pic.twitter.com/ExXJlsvRI1
— Luis Ferré Sadurní (@luisferre) June 11, 2017
The parade crowd chanted “Oscar!” and “Arriba!”
However, not every attendee was pleased. According to The Daily News, NYPD officers shook their heads and glared at Lopez Rivera and Mark Viverito when the float rolled by.
One officer who remained anonymous told the Daily News, “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t working. We gotta do our jobs man.”
A parade attendee from the Bronx told the Post that he was upset about Lopez Rivera.
“This really pisses me off,” seethed Mark Rivera, 38. “This is a day for honoring the republic of Puerto Rico, not honoring a terrorist. This man has no place in our parade. He makes me ashamed to be a Puerto Rican.”
Joe Connor, whose father, Frank Connor, was killed by an FALN planted bomb blast at New York’s Franuces Tavern, told The Daily Caller, “For Melissa Mark Viverito to honor Lopez as a Freedom Hero is insane and reprehensible. Just today 97 percent of Puerto Ricans voted FOR statehood and never, even in Lopez’s day did more than 5% ever voted for independence.”
Connor went on to say, “He never had the support of PR people and never intended to free them but to enslave them in a Cuban like Marxist state. His comrade William Morales and others like BLA cop killer Joanne Chesimard remain under Cuban safe harbor. He praises Cuba and receives praise from Castro. I have more distain for politicians like the Clintons, Eric Holder, deBlasio, Obama, Gutierrez and Viverito than I do even for the terrorist himself. We place our trust in our elected and appointed officials yet they betray us by first releasing and now honoring a sworn terrorist like Lopez.”
He added, “Bottom line is that these politicians marched with and honored a sworn terrorist whose faln attacked and murdered in our city. That is unforgivable. These politicians must politically pay for their betrayals.”