“Insulting me is part of my paycheck,” explains one of the four patrol officers. City Guards of the Barcelona This morning, June 4th, it went into operation in the Ciutat Vella area. “That’s not the case,” adds one of his colleagues. “What worries us is that they respect us less and less, confront us, if they’re in a group. they’re cheering to challenge us and most of the time they might end up attacking us”, they agree.
Police officers point out that the infuriating pandemic is plaguing citizens, especially the youngest, who are fed up with the bans. And now that these have disappeared, there are many who do not tolerate the slightest police intervention begging them. stop drinking on the street or play music with loudspeakers on public roads, with or without coronavirus, forbidden in barcelona and they should be followed. The city is waking up “strongly” from the lethargy meant by covid-19, they warn. El Periódico de Catalunya followed the City Guard’s patrols in the oldest part of the city last morning. Here is what he found:
Rolex thief arrested
It’s just before ten o’clock and the first offense that requires your attention has already been committed. A “watchmaker”, a savage thief specializing in ripping high-quality watches from tourists’ wrists, has stolen a watch. The Rolex on Sant Pere Mitja street is worth around 20,000 euros and ran away. He didn’t get far: A few minutes later, agents were able to arrest him while he was trying to hide the watch at a neighborhood gate. “We couldn’t find the victim, we think she was scared and went to the hotel,” they complain, detailing something unusual.
An hour later, Urbana begins to evacuate from the squares, accompanied by riot police. Els Angels or Terenci Moix. They do it before midnight to let them in. Enter the cleaning crews. “And if I hadn’t handed them over to the police, would these youngsters defy the cleaners and prevent them from doing their job?” The cops nodded to answer. In fact, and despite the fact that they are not particularly rebellious tonight, because thanks to them they are less than usual. Spring Sound, There were some teenagers who decided to ignore the flash devices of the patrols. “We do well to drink these on the street, 15 euros if paid immediately“, they explain.
While trying to break the bottles, he gets a call about the suicide attempt. 28 year old woman Caught jumping on Barcelona metro line. The guards discovered her in time, and she went to try again at another station, according to the tip. Luckily, Urbana agents intercept her first, and she finally accepts an offer. voluntary admission to a psychiatric hospital.
knife fight
before it ends ‘grazing’ young people’s strategy to clear Raval squares – a strategy of pushing the masses to make room little by little – this is called the radio station knife fight. Stopping at a bar near the Botero cat monument, the two young men got into a fierce brawl. One of them has several wounds and also threatened and poked with a knife. The attacker, much younger than him, is arrested.
As the patrol car, after finishing the service, circles the Rambla del Raval to continue emptying the bottles, a young Argentinian blonde approaches the car and speaks hastily because her cell phone has been stolen. “I consulted him for a moment to find a street, put it in my holster, and after a few seconds it disappeared.” The agents get out of the car and drive to exactly where the woman says she was robbed. It happened in front of a hotel with a camera on Hospital Street. The recordings got him: It’s shown how a man is placed right behind him, and as soon as he puts the phone in his holster, he slides his hand into his fanny pack and pulls out the device without it. to notice.
violent robbery
Around two o’clock at night, a new service is coming, related to another service. violent robbery. Several men accompanying a friend to get into a taxi were violently attacked by a pickpocket at Carrer d’En Roig. One tore the gold chain and the other tore the mobile phone. luckilyscreams of both victims alert another Urbana patrolThe one who applies the brakes gets out of the vehicle and the pedestrian chase starts and catches the suspect. This, mitigated by Urbana, resists as best he can, causing the police to hesitate: “I’ll be out of jail immediately.”
“I don’t know what happened, I had the phone in hand,” explains one of the men frankly sadly. “I didn’t even realize you were trying to steal my gold chain,” the other victim emphasizes. a red mark on the neck due to pulling that he receives, but shows signs of being thwarted by fear.
Events continued throughout the night. The last are thefts recorded during the time period coinciding with the closing of bars and nightclubs. A few customers have approached beaches like Somorrostro, where ‘negligents’ who stole their belongings await them while they relax on the sand for a while before returning home.
crime normality
Few indicators are more reliable than looking at crime data to measure the city’s pulse. Very low data were recorded in 2020 and 2021. This 2022 score is different, crime is picking up. “First of all, the increase in violent robberies is striking,” police sources explain. El Periódico de Catalunya witnessed Just three tonight before leaving Ciutat Vella.
This is an unintended consequence of the economic recovery, and above all, return of tourism. The fact that the thieves have returned and the large bottles have not gone makes no sense to the deputy chief of police, Albert Batllethat the city must succumb to a summer of crime and brutality. During the presentation of the device, which will last until September 5 last Monday, he urged not to surrender “as if it were the eleventh plague of Egypt” to the emergence of the side effects of recovery. That’s where the cops are.