On the afternoon of February 16, 2021, an 18-year-old girl who was participating in a demonstration protesting the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasél in Barcelona lost an eye. A foam projectile launched by the Mossos d’Esquadra to contain the riots hit her and left her injured. The young woman filed a complaint that, now, the head of the investigating court number 1 of Barcelona, Joaquín Aguirre, has decisively filed: not only does he not see a crime in the actions of the riot police but he considers that the girl should “bear the consequences” for having put herself in danger by participating in a protest in which serious altercations were taking place.
The judge considers that there was no intention or recklessness in the actions of the three Mossos agents (two shotgunners and a Mobile Brigade commander) who were being investigated in the case. By order of a superior, the officers fired foam projectiles to prevent the protesters, who had been throwing all kinds of objects at them for some time, from passing them and entering the Lesseps National Police station. The young woman was part of that group of between 300 and 400 people, so she “put herself in a dangerous situation,” according to the judge.
“What is in no way to be expected,” the order reasons, “is that the police forces do not react to an attack as serious and violent as the one they were suffering, which forces the complainant to bear the consequences of self-imposition.” danger”. For the young woman’s lawyer, Xavi Muñoz Soriano, who has already filed an appeal against the file of the case, this statement is “aberrant.” “The judge justifies that an 18-year-old girl loses an eye for traveling through an area,” says Muñoz, who believes that intentionality or recklessness should be resolved in the oral trial and not in the investigation phase. “The lack of conditions to shoot does not justify hurting anyone; On the contrary, according to the protocol, it requires abstention,” he adds.
The arrest and imprisonment of Pablo Hasél caused a wave of riots in different cities of Catalonia, especially virulent in Barcelona. On February 16, 2021, around 4,500 people participated in a protest in Place de Lesseps. Half a thousand later went to the nearby police station, where they “started an ambush” and threw “blunt objects” at the Mossos riot police, who were protecting the facility and who found themselves “surrounded by violent protesters,” according to the judge’s account.
At 8:18 p.m., the head of the device authorized the use of foam projectiles to guarantee the safety of the agents. In his argument, the judge emphasizes that launcher shotguns “are in no way designed for precision shooting,” so it was impossible for any agent to avoid the possibility that they could “cause the loss of an eye” to a person. demonstrator. From the report in the car, it is concluded that the young woman was, indeed, injured by a foam shot, a type of projectile that replaced rubber balls a decade ago, when they were banned in Catalonia.
Aguirre justifies the “proportionality” of the measure in light of the “extraordinary violence” of the protesters who, once dispersed after the shooting, headed towards Barcelona’s Paseo de Gràcia and caused serious damage to businesses. “If these events had happened in the Basque Country before the ETA truce, they would have been classified as terrorist acts (the so-called kale borroka),” the car adds.
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