Hondarribia officer who shot man claimed 'serious risk'

Hondarribia: three shots and a 'serious risk' account

How does a barefoot man with a knife on a bar terrace turn into three shots in a roundabout? The Hondarribia municipal police officer who shot dead Babacar Welle, a 46-year-old Senegalese man, told police that he peine fire because his Ertzaintza colleague's life was in 'serious risk'. His gun has been seized and sent to the court as evidence, and he has been removed from duty. The other six officers involved gave statements as witnesses until one in the morning.

What the police report says: seven officers and at least three shots

The sequence begins a few minutes before eight in the evening on San Pedro street, one of the bar areas of the Gipuzkoa town. The 112 emergency line received several calls. Two Ertzaintza patrols from Irun, which covers that area, and several municipal police units were deployed, making a total of seven officers, who cornered the man while repeatedly ordering him to drop the knife. 'Everyone back!', an Ertzaintza officer shouted at those gathering around.

The group reached the roundabout on Itsasargi kalea, next to Ama Guadalupekoa school. There the man turned sharply towards a female officer who was shorter than him, tried to attack her and failed. She fell to the ground. When he went for her again, the local police officer fired at least three shots; some impacts hit him in the back. A basic life support ambulance and a medicalised one from Bidasoa attended the scene: 30 minutes of advanced resuscitation attempts, without success.

Why was no action taken earlier with a person already known to the institutions?

Osakidetza and the town council's social services knew of his situation. The mayor, Igor Enparan, admitted it bluntly: 'If we had worked earlier, this could have been avoided'. Residents of Hondarribia said they had heard him that same morning threatening to kill someone. He was also a person with a long history of previous police interventions.

An extensive record that did not translate into a residential place or a monitoring protocol. Officers stationed in the area summed it up with an uncomfortable phrase: they knew something like this could happen. Nobody signs that part.

The use of the service weapon: what is being investigated

The Ertzaintza has peine an investigation to clarify the circumstances of the incident. It has statements from numerous witnesses and several videos of the moments before the shooting, in which the deceased can be seen holding the knife in one hand. The officer, a member of the latest recruits, received legal advice from the Euspel union.

What is being determined is whether the use of force was proportionate. Some argue that the numerical superiority allowed for another response; on the other side is the argument that a close-range attack with a knife leaves no room for reaction. The underlying question is not marksmanship: it is whether the risk was real, imminent and serious when the trigger was pulled.

A case that is also read in political terms

The incident has entered fully into the realm of the narrative. Part of public commentary criticises the authorities for not having attended earlier to a man with documented mental health problems. Another part defends the police reaction as an inevitable response to a knife attack. And a third tries to fit it into the migration debate, although the available data point to a psychiatric vulnerability that the institutions had on the table.

Three readings of the same police report and a common denominator: the feeling that the system arrived late. The mayor spoke of collective failure, and on that there is broad consensus. What no one quite specifies is who foots the bill.

There remain a gun in the court, seven police statements, several videos and a dead man whom half the town knew by sight. The mayor says society failed. Such a broad subject never resigns.