A lonely and unarmed municipal guard is powerless to stop a mass fight between a family and several young people on the street and in broad daylight in Alcover (Tarragona). Several young people followed another man with whom they had previous grudges to his home and began to beat him until the victim’s family intervened. Upon learning what was happening, the parents of one of the contestants violently attacked the aggressors, breaking out in a fight to which a local municipal guard arrived, alone and unarmed.
Despite everything, the municipal guard, who replaces local police in small municipalities in Catalonia, confronts the Spaniards and foreigners participating in the fight and tries to stop it without success. Up to six people take part in the brawl, hitting each other with belts and punching and kicking each other for several minutes.
From time to time, the municipal guard manages to separate the combatants who come to stop traffic in the area by moving the fight to the center of the road. Finally, the guard manages to calm things down until the arrival of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
Shortly after, the Mossos managed to arrest the two young men, aged 24 and 23, who started the fight, under the accusation of an alleged crime of injuries. One of them carried a knife that he did not use during the fight. The agents also identified the other three members of the rival group in the brawl to accuse them of the same crime.
One-person patrols
The images recorded by witnesses of the fight have revealed the harsh conditions in which the municipal guards carry out their work, who act alone in “one-person patrols” and work unarmed with legal limitations. They are the ones who assume security tasks in the Catalan municipalities that do not have a Local Police.
Members of this auxiliary body have shown their indignation on the networks about the events in Alcover and ask the Generalitat to improve their material and legal working conditions: “The municipal guards continue with legal insecurity, without defense tools and with little and differentiated training with the rest of the police forces. Nobody gets down to work, we are talking about 380,000 citizens of 150 small towns, discriminated against and 500 forgotten agents.
The detainees have been made available to the Valls courts this Wednesday, September 18.
