Cuba Officially Mourns a Slain Police Officer

HAVANA — Cuba observed official mourning Monday for a policeman it said was shot by “counterrevolutionaries” trying to flee the island, and state organizations and media blamed the United States for his death.

Tens of thousands of Cubans filed past the coffin of 23-year-old police Sgt. Rolando Perez Quintosa, who died in a hospital Saturday of bullet wounds he sustained last Jan. 9.

Cuban authorities declared a half working day Monday so that workers, students and schoolchildren could attend the ceremonial funeral in Havana later in the day.