What the Police do with your protection order: COPOP

COPOP is the Puerto Rico Police’s Protection Order Operations and Processing Centre, attached to its Gender Violence Unit. It is a Comprehensive Digital Registry created under Act No. 420 of 16 October 2000, as amended, known as the Electronic Filing of Protection Orders Act. Its function is to centralise everything to do with effective service of protection orders and with preventive patrolling. The application builds a profile of the respondent — the person the protection is sought against — so they can be notified swiftly. This guide covers that stage: what happens after the court issues the order. Requesting the order is a court procedure, not a Police one.

This guide applies to anyone who already has a protection order issued by a Puerto Rico court and wants to know what the Police do with it, or who to call if it has not been served. If you do not have the order yet, requesting it is done before the court and not before the Police: this page does not describe that process because it does not belong to this agency.

• That a court has issued the protection order. Service is what happens afterwards: the Police do not issue orders.Verified against the official source

• The copy of the order issued by the court, with its case number, so it can be identified when you call.

1. 1

   Step 1: The order reaches the Gender Violence Unit

   The Police describe that COPOP’s operational application allows the protection order to be registered immediately with the Gender Violence Unit at Police Headquarters. That registration is the starting point for everything else.

2. 2

   Step 2: Service and firearm seizure are coordinated

   On receiving the order, the Police state that positive service, suspension of weapons licences and seizure of firearms are coordinated as an immediate safety measure. It is the part most people do not know about: the firearms consequence for the respondent is part of the same operational flow, not a separate step you have to request.

3. 3

   Step 3: The respondent’s profile is checked

   COPOP has immediate access to the respondent’s profile to verify their information: vehicle licence, cars registered in their name, whether they own firearms, and whether there is a history of assault or violence. That is what allows service and patrolling to be planned with real information rather than blindly.

4. 4

   Step 4: If it has not been served, call Service of Process

   The Police publish the Service of Process Requests line at 787-724-5454. Have the court case number and the date the order was issued to hand. If the situation involves a sexual offence, the Sexual Offences Guidance Line is 787-343-0000.

5. 5

   Step 5: Look for support, not just paperwork

   The Police link to the Office of the Women’s Advocate at www.mujer.pr.gov, and COPOP has a team of social workers coordinating preventive patrol services in twenty-two municipalities. If you are in immediate danger, 9-1-1 is the route, not an administrative step.

Service is handled by the Police and does not require you to file anything: the order arrives from the court. To ask about the status of service, the line is 787-724-5454. The Police general switchboard is (787) 793-1234 and Headquarters is at 601 Ave. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, San Juan, 00936. To request the protection order in the first place, that is done before the court, not before the Police.

• Thinking the Police issue the protection order: the court issues it and the Police serve it.
• Not knowing that suspension of weapons licences and seizure of firearms are part of the same process.
• Calling the general switchboard instead of the Service of Process line, 787-724-5454.
• Using an administrative step in a situation of immediate danger instead of calling 9-1-1.
• Treating the 2.7-day average as current, which the Police published for 2023 up to 15 June.
• Not having the court case number to hand when calling to ask about service.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Policía de Puerto Rico

  Policía de PR

  www.policia.pr.gov

• Puerto Rico Police — contact and station directory

  Policía de Puerto Rico

  www.policia.pr.gov

• Office of the Women’s Advocate

  Oficina de la Procuradora de las Mujeres

  www.mujer.pr.gov