2024-04-01 12:14:46
The General Directorate of the Police has opened confidential information to determine if there are indications of disciplinary violation in the actions of two officers in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés last week. A video spread on social networks sparked controversy over the use of force by police officers against two black men who appear in the images in a passive attitude. The Police reported that both were arrested for attacking authority.
Hundreds of people gather against institutional racism after the video of alleged police abuse in Lavapiés
Reserved information is the Police mechanism prior to opening a file. If the Disciplinary Regime sees signs that the regulations have been breached, the Police opens disciplinary proceedings against the agents. An instructor and a secretary will investigate the facts for months until they propose a sanction to the General Directorate or, conversely, the filing of the file in the event that they do not see irregularities in the police actions.
On the other hand, the Ministry of the Interior announced this Monday that the National Office for the Guarantee of Human Rights (ONGADH) will also act ex officio, a body housed in the department itself, which was created in February 2022 and does not have the capacity sanctioning.
According to an Interior spokesperson, the National Office for the Guarantee of Human Rights (ONGADH, dependent on the Inspection of Security Personnel and Services of the General Directorate of Coordination and Studies of the Secretariat of State for Security) has the task of ensuring compliance by the State Security Forces and Corps with national and international standards that guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of people.
“This office acts as a monitoring, coordination and evaluation mechanism that helps to make visible and promote the commitment of the State Security Forces and Bodies (FCSE) in respect for human rights, for which it analyzes facts and actions that may highlight an alleged violation of people’s fundamental rights during a police action,” explains the aforementioned source.
Sumar and Podemos ask for explanations
The Sumar parliamentary group will ask the Ministry of the Interior for explanations for the attack by two National Police officers on two young people in Lavapiés, as shown in a recording in video broadcast on social networks this Friday. The petition, signed on Saturday by Iñigo Errejón, raises several questions and asks that they be answered in writing by the Interior before the Congress of Deputies.
The video referred to by the Madrid deputy from Sumar shows how one of the police officers has immobilized a young man on the ground while the second officer hits him on the legs with a baton, on several occasions. Moments later, this second agent attacks another man on the street, who had not offered resistance, and hits him in the chest before trying to grab him by the neck.
The recording has also been released by SOS Racismo Madrid. The organization assures in a message on Instagram that one of the agents involved is “quite well known in the neighborhood for his always violent attitudes towards racialized people.” The NGO states that the images are “one more example of how the state security forces act in Lavapiés” and that “those of us who live in this neighborhood know that these actions are common and no one does anything about it.”
“You can perceive cruelty,” says the letter signed by Errejón, “which does not seem to respond to a moderate protocol of police action.” The document adds that “the residents of the Lavapiés neighborhood have been denouncing the existence of police violence towards migrants.”
Sumar thus requires the Ministry of the Interior to respond “what justification it finds for the agents to have applied disproportionate police action, how it assesses the events that occurred and how it is going to clarify them.” Yolanda Díaz’s party also wants to know if a file will be opened against the agents, as well as what measures the Interior will take “in response to citizen complaints of police violence against migrants in Lavapiés.”
The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has also spread the video on her X account and has requested the dismissal of Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska. The deputy has described the events as “absolutely gratuitous and unjustified police violence that is repeated against racialized people” and added that “it can have no place in a democracy.” Different anti-racist groups and associations demonstrated last Sunday to show their rejection of police brutality.
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