Barcelona riots: 128 arrested, including 72 minors

Barcelona tallies up the riots: 128 arrested and 72 minors

Barcelona proge up on Sunday counting broken shopfronts and asking who was behind Saturday's barricades. The toll circulating is stark: 128 arrested, of whom 72 are minors, including at least one 14-year-old, 14 police officers injured — four of them seriously — and 23 shops vandalised. The number of arrests is not what troubles people most. What troubles them is that the police chief of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalonia's regional police force) admitted, twelve hours later, that she still did not know the origin or nationality of those arrested.

The protest, according to what is being said, began as an online call over the state of schools and the cost of housing. Within hours, the story split in two: some saw student activism; others, looting of luxury shops with phones as the target. The scene of hooded youths giving interviews to the public broadcaster about "shitty teachers" and "this shitty government", then throwing stones and running off, captures the confusion. The cause was noble; the methods, straight out of a school playground.

Who answers politically for the Barcelona riots?

The mayor and the regional president are named explicitly in the demands spreading across social media: guarantee safety, identify the violent offenders and make them pay for the damage. The Generalitat (Catalonia's regional government) thanked the Mossos and condemned the violence, but without blaming any groups collectively. The PSOE, Spain's Socialist party, for its part argued that the only winner in the chaos is the far right, and attacked Feijóo for failing to condemn the events. The politics of attribution ran at full throttle while the streets were still smoking.

Some claim the authorities could identify everyone involved, because there are hundreds of videos. Others reply that incivil a whole group for what a minority did is the shortcut the far right sells. Between those two poles lies the uncomfortable fact: most of those arrested live in the metropolitan area, according to the police chief herself, though their nationality remains unclear.

The business of riots: 23 shops and one computer store

The material count is the least disputed: 23 shops vandalised, street furniture burned, bins ablaze and barricades in the city centre. A computer components store was wrecked, and the looting targeted luxury retailers. The anecdote making the rounds is that of a local resident, Manolo, who according to the story confronted the attackers. The anonymous hero of the weekend.

The economic question is simple: who pays for the damage? For now, the affected shopkeepers. Insurance will cover part of it, but premiums for city-centre businesses in Barcelona are hardly going to fall. And the shopping tourism that sustains much of the district's employment looks warily at a city that burns on a Saturday afternoon.

The story that doesn't add up: from housing to looting

How the narrative evolved is the real object of study. It began with talk of young people demanding decent schools and housing. It ended with talk of looting, 14-year-olds under arrest and groups dressed uniformly in black who, according to witnesses, did not even share a common language among themselves. The gap between the stated cause and the material outcome leaves both sides without an argument.

The figure that stirs the most unease is that of the minors: 72 out of 128 arrested. More than half. If the education system is really so bad, as the placards claimed, the police statistics suggest the problem does not start in the classroom. Or that the classroom is just the excuse. Nobody has a full answer. And that is where the analysis stalls: with 128 arrested, 23 shops wrecked and a police chief who still does not know who is in her cells.