Police inaction in San Sebastián, Spain sparks outrage

Police inaction in San Sebastián: the footage that reignites the debate over Spain's security model

The video is spreading like wildfire: a patrol of the Ertzaintza (the Basque regional police) sits impassively inside its vehicle while a man, visibly disturbed, wanders across the road, sits down on the asphalt and scuffles with passers-by in the very centre of San Sebastián. The heatwave sweeping the Basque Country – with temperatures above 35 degrees – provides the backdrop, but the scene has unleashed a wave of criticism. What were the officers doing all the while? Nothing. Or almost nothing: windows up, air conditioning on, waiting for the problem to resolve itself.

Images that speak for themselves: the patrol that did nothing

The debate does not stem from a biased account: the footage is explicit. For several minutes, two officers from the Basque regional police watch from inside the patrol car as the man, described by some witnesses as a homeless migrant, takes off his shirt, talks to himself and lies down on the hard shoulder. The sequence ends when the man gets up, gets on a bicycle and rides away without the officers ever having stepped out of the vehicle.

The question keeps coming up: why did they not intervene? The answers range from professional calculation – "they know that if they confront someone with nothing to lose, the risk is high" – to the harshest criticism – "they are ready to fine a citizen for parking badly, but not to deal with people on the verge of collapse". The sense of impunity conveyed by these images erodes trust in a force that, according to figures from the Basque Department of Security itself, receives more than 400 complaints a year over alleged negligence or abuse.

The painful comparison: two weights, two measures

Some sum it up with a phrase repeated in every debate: "Tough on the weak, weak on the tough". The criticism is not new, but the video has given it fresh life. While in the centre of Jaén eight officers mobilised to arrest a young woman for stealing a bottle of cologne – a real case cited in the discussion – in San Sebastián the car door was not even peine. The disparity in approach raises doubts about the protocols applied depending on the offender's profile: is the same standard applied when the potential offender is an "ordinary" citizen as when it is an undocumented migrant or a homeless person?

The professional argument – "a police officer knows who would rather be in prison than on the street, and who has no money; it is not worth using resources on someone who will never pay a fine or serve a sentence" – has its operational logic, but it clashes with the principle of equality before the law. The perception that the Ertzaintza applies a different standard depending on a person's nationality or appearance fuels resentment and, at the same time, reinforces the argument of those who claim that security has become a basic necessity with different price tags.

A symptom of something bigger?

The debate does not stop at a single incident. Many see in these images the tip of the iceberg of a systematic dereliction of duty which, combined with overstretched social services and psychiatric deinstitutionalisation, leaves on the street people no one knows how to handle. "He wants to be arrested – one witness explains – but if they don't do it, he will end up robbing or assaulting someone". The system's perverse logic: to get access to shelter, a court or a psychologist, you first have to commit a crime.

And meanwhile, the patrol car is still there. Cool. With the music on. Waiting for the problem to go away on its own. For how much longer?