Ramón Falcón

Ramón Lorenzo Falcón
Falcón on the cover of Caras y Caretas, 1909.
Born	August 30, 1855 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	November 14, 1909(1909-11-14) (aged 54) Buenos Aires

Ramón Lorenzo Falcón (August 30, 1855 – November 14, 1909) was an Argentine Army officer, politician, and Chief of the Argentine Federal Police.

Falcón was born in Buenos Aires. He enrolled at the National Military College and graduated with honors in 1873. He served as aide de camp to President Domingo Sarmiento and was enlisted in the Conquest of the Desert campaign. He co-founded the Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata football club in 1887; CGE would become the oldest association football team in continuous existence in the Americas.

He retired from the Army in 1898 with the rank of Colonel, and was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for Buenos Aires on the ruling National Autonomist Party ticket. Amid growing civil unrest, President José Figueroa Alcorta appointed Falcón as Chief of the Argentine Federal Police upon taking office in 1906. Figueroa Alcorta believed that, led by a military officer, the Federal Police would be better able to react to and control protests. Accordingly, Falcón established the Cadets' Training Academy, streamlined the force's administration, and had new uniforms designed.

The first significant test of Falcón's mettle as chief of police was the Tenants' Strike of 1907. Falcón initiated dialogue with strike organizers, who were mainly women and whose demands centered around rising rents and deteriorating conditions in the city's estimated 2,000 tenements. Ultimately, however, talks broke down, and protests associated with the strike was quelled with the use of mounted police armed with sabres. Rent strikers themselves were evicted from their homes in July (a winter month in the Southern Hemisphere) with the use of high-pressure hoses and cold water.