9mm.

international | crime and justice | other press

Tuesday August 30, 2005 19:33

by knowing my duty

The public disquiet raised by the presence of arms in society might lay behind the media interest in Catalonia in an incident this last week which saw young recently recruited police officers fire 4 shots at 1.75m described as "warning shots fired in the air" in response to an incident involving persistent graffiti taggers.
The incident occured at a public metro city during an annual street festival which figures on the August itinerary for many tourists including Irish men and women, boys and girls.

My duty is to report, translate, appraise, disseminate, publicise, inform, interpret,
analyse.
I've had this burden a long time. & am not through my purgatory yet.

I believe there are issues in this newstory which might be of interest to the reader of indymedia ireland at local level, at community level, at grass roots level, at tourist level.

The incident saw members of the metro system's own contracted security force, each armed with a revolver and issued with over 20 rounds of ammunition. The security men who comprised the first (M) Metro "indirect" employees on the scene called for back-up, another M employed security team. None of these men, fired their revolvers. THe (M) Metro contracts this work to the multi-national corporation "securitas"
http://www.securitasgroup.com/

THe back-up which arrived of 2 national spanish police officers did.

4 shots wer fired.

The would-be graffiti youths escaped on foot.
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The assembly of the neighbourhood of Sants, Barcelona today reported the action and denounced the absurd level of force and threat of force, and the influence this incident might have on others licensed to carry arms in a city which is each year reporting more and more anti-social incidents.
http://www.vilaweb.com/www/noticia?p_idcmp=1495467
http://www.vilaweb.com/www/noticia?p_idcmp=1493278

The assembly have also requested for full attention to be given to the first public and commercial media account of the incident which now emerges to have untrue.
http://www.vilaweb.com/www/ep/noticia?noticia=1492657
THe story being lead subject of a 5 page feature on anti-social behaviour in the La Vanguardia mass circulation newspaper - focussing on drinking aggressive types, drugusers and their dealers, the ugly indigents and their cardboard boxes, foreign dogs that shit everywhere, and of course skateboarders.

the primary links on this page are to the largest circulation Catalan language Catalonia only news organisation.
They also do the tourist friendly 1€ weekly newspaper. They're very reliable.