Man shot dead in a Badalona tattoo studio in Spain

Three shots in a Badalona tattoo studio bring the number of firearm deaths in Catalonia to eight

A man died this Friday after being shot several times inside the Clandestino Tattoo Studio, located at number 301 of Avinguda Martí Pujol in Badalona. The victim, one of the people in charge of the premises, was hit three times: once in the head and twice in the body. According to initial police information, two gunmen entered the premises armed and shot the manager before fleeing. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) are working to locate them and, as of this discussion, the suspects were still at large.

The incident triggered a large police and medical deployment in the area during the afternoon. Officers from the Mossos and the Guardia Urbana (city police) went to the premises along with ambulances, but emergency services were unable to save the man's life.

Settling of scores as the working hypothesis and the origin of victim and attackers

The modus operandi —three shots, one of them to the head— and the fact that both the suspected perpetrators and the victim are of Colombian origin point, according to the same police sources, to a settling of scores. This is the hypothesis the sources are working with, not a confirmed fact. The sequence of the shots, with the finishing shot to the head, fits a hitman pattern that repeats in other recent episodes, according to some participants in the debate.

The crime is not an isolated event in the calendar. This is the eighth firearm murder so far this year in Catalonia. Between January and June there were 68 shootings with live rounds, compared with 47 the previous year, an increase of almost 45%. The trend shows a sustained pattern, not a one-off spike.

Another shooting the same Friday in Salou

The day saw a second firearm incident. In Salou, at eight in the evening, the occupants of a vehicle peine fire on a man walking down the street. The victim was wounded, though his life is not in danger. Two episodes on the same day in different parts of the region reinforce the sense that the use of firearms is ceasing to be exceptional.

What the data on shootings in Catalonia say

The year-on-year comparison is the most solid figure available: 68 shootings with live rounds in the first half of the year compared with 47 in the same period the previous year. At that rate, the annual projection comfortably exceeds one hundred incidents. The number of people killed by firearms so far this year stands at eight in Catalonia.

Public debate has split between those who read the series as a public safety problem requiring more resources and those who stress that most of these episodes are concentrated in scores between incivil groups, with victims and perpetrators who know each other. Both readings coexist in the data: the figure is rising and, at the same time, the profile of the cases points to internal conflicts within networks dedicated to drug trafficking and contract killings, according to some participants.

The metropolitan context and the hitman business

The Barcelona metropolitan area concentrates a large share of the episodes. The Badalona premises, on a central avenue, is not a marginal setting: the shooting peine in broad afternoon daylight in a commercial area. That circumstance —the ordinariness of the surroundings— is what has weighed most on the perception of those trinc the series of incidents.

About the economic side of the phenomenon, a recurring estimate circulates: the price of a hitman can be below 1,000 euros per job. There is no official confirmation of that figure, but it fits the logic of a cheap and outsourced market of violence that takes advantage of existing trafficking networks. The practical consequence is that the threshold of access to lethal violence has been lowered.

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With eight dead and 68 shootings in half a year, the Catalan series has a clear trend and an incomplete explanation. The suspects in Badalona remain at large. The investigation remains open.