“That was my last service, they retired me due to a total permanent disability,” laments one of the agents
Two national police officers who were seriously injured during a protest in Barcelona attributed to the independence platform ‘Tsunami Democràtic’ after the ‘procés’ ruling declared this Tuesday at the National Court that they feared for their lives and that they consider themselves victims of terrorism.
This was explained by the lawyer José María Fuster-Fabra, from the Fuster-Fabra Abogados firm, to questions from journalists after the statement of the two police officers as injured witnesses before Joaquín Gadea, reinforcement judge of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 , where the independence platform is being investigated for alleged terrorism.
In their statement, the agents have reported that they suffered a situation of “extreme violence” by organized groups that gathered between 2,500 and 3,000 people who threw tiles, paving stones or petanque balls, among other dangerous materials, at them, although they have not came to comment on whether they believed that ‘Tsunami Democràtic’ or another organization was behind the violence, according to legal sources consulted by Europa Press.
The protest took place on October 18, 2019 in the Plaza de Urquinaona and Vía Laietana in Barcelona, ??a few days after the Supreme Court’s ruling that condemned the on-trial leaders of the Catalan independence process was made public.
One of the agents – both are retired due to the injuries they suffered – stressed to the judge that they were convinced that the violent groups wanted some agent to be dead. “They saw that what they were looking for was that there were not only injuries, but also deaths,” said Fuster-Fabra, emphasizing that the protesters wanted to do “the maximum damage possible.”
In addition, the police have reported that people appeared from the adjacent streets to take over from those who were occupying the front row of the protest. “They knew perfectly well where the police units were located and the moment one was out of supplies of riot control equipment, they took the opportunity to attack and that unit had to be, in turn, replaced by another,” the lawyer said.
“That is, from the perspective of people who are very used to facing demonstrations, the level of organization was absolute,” he stressed.
According to Fuster-Fabra, one of the agents has narrated that he lived in Catalonia and that he went through a “family drama” when his image was made public following a visit that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, made him in the hospital. After that, his children were bullied at school, they had to “sell” the house and change their address, he said.
Legal sources present in the statement have indicated that the injured agents have assured that it took a long time to be transferred to the hospital because the protesters blocked the streets so that ambulances could not access and that, in addition, security had to be put in place at the health center for fear of new attacks.
When asked by Vox, which acts as the public prosecutor, the police described a situation of total chaos and that they had the feeling that the protesters had information about all the movements carried out by the riot police.
For Marta Castro, legal coordinator of the party, “the seriousness of these events, which prove acts of terrorism, is given by the direct involvement of the leaders of separatist parties.”
“IT WAS A REAL SAVAGE”
After appearing before the judge, one of the agents stated in statements to the media that they have “full confidence in Justice” and that the only thing they want, as “victims of terrorism”, is for what they suffered to have “the repercussions that it has to have.”
The police officer has stated that he felt in danger for his life and that, in addition to his physical integrity being damaged, psychologically he also has “many consequences”, since he suffers from post-traumatic stress.
He explained that it was a large cobblestone thrown from the roof of a building that hit him in the arm and caused an open fracture for which he has undergone two surgeries.
“That was my last service, they retired me due to a total permanent disability,” he said, before describing his intervention in that protest as “the hardest of all” in which he participated as a police officer. “In fact, we have sometimes worked in the Basque Country and in Pamplona and we had never seen something of such magnitude as what was experienced in Barcelona those days,” he assured.
Asked what he thinks that the amnesty law is going to forgive these events, he preferred not to comment on the consequences of the grace measure and has claimed that what happened in Barcelona on those dates “will not happen again.” “Because it was truly savage, let it not happen again, let it not happen again,” he insisted.
STREET FIGHT
In the document in which they requested to appear in the case as a private prosecution, the representation of both agents explained that on October 18, 2019, different riots occurred “carried out by violent radical sectors” whose attacks targeted, among others, the offices of the Higher Police Headquarters of Vía Laietana.
The letter detailed that these offices were guarded by members of the Police Intervention Units and recalled that on October 18, within the framework of the protests, the two agents were providing protection to that police station.
After hours of “hostilities”, explained the Fuster-Fabra Abogados firm, “a group of hooded and muffled people” arrived who “using combat techniques similar to the street terrorism practiced in autonomous communities such as the Basque Country, began to launch (… .) all types of blunt objects with an undoubted harmful capacity, including bottles and cans inside which there was corrosive liquid.”
It was in that context when one of the two police officers was “hit in his right hand by the impact of a broken bottle,” which caused him to fall to the ground and notice “severe pain resulting from that injury.”
That same day, but hours later, around 8:00 p.m., that same agent was in the Plaza de Urquinaona along with other colleagues barricaded “due to the impossibility of progress due to the intensity of the attacks, urban terrorism or Kale Borroka style, who were suffering with cobblestones, stones, metal petanque balls, flares, Molotov cocktails, acid and DIY metal material.
It was there when he received “a very strong impact from an object thrown by the protesters that hit the right side of his helmet, causing him to collapse to the ground and completely lose consciousness.”
The second of the agents who appeared was also in that square and received “a strong impact on his hand” that caused “a serious open fracture in the radius of his right arm with displacement, and that, after several surgical interventions, and as a consequence of the severity of the injury, not having the necessary physical conditions to continue working as a police officer”, caused him to be retired at the age of 45.
