José Bismarck Martínez
“He didn’t want his children living under a repressive regime”
Wounded in Masaya on June 19. Died on September 16.
María Graciela Pérez Ruiz affirms that her husband, José Bismarck Martínez, was a responsible father, concerned about his children, who tried to provide them with all they needed. He was a shoemaker and was always working. People liked his work and he was very popular. They called him “Shinola.” He loved soccer and had his team at the Salesiano School. He was also a huge Real Madrid fan.
When the protest began, José Bismarck Martínez went to the barricades. His only weapon was a homemade mortar launcher. His wife, María Graciela Pérez Ruiz, recounts that she asked him not to go, telling him to stay home, but he insisted. “He said that what they were doing to the university students was not just, that one day his children would go to the university and he didn’t want them to go through the same thing.”
Facts
On June 19, 2018, between 4:00 and 4:30 in the afternoon, he was guarding a barricade in the Fátima barrio when he was wounded by gunshots in his back. His friends told his wife, and she went to a house where the wounded were receiving medical care.
He was taken to the Masaya Hospital, where he spent one month, and was later transferred to the Lenín Fonseca Hospital. After one month in intensive care and another month in regular care, he was sent home but was told that he would never move again because the bullet had damaged his brainstem. Despite everything, María Graciela says she “was happy because he could speak and was conscious, although he couldn’t move and had trouble breathing, at times practically suffocating.” Shortly afterwards, he experienced complications and was transferred to the Masaya Hospital, where he died on September 16.
Memory
Masaya
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