Two regional police officers convicted for assaulting a detainee in Spain

A judge convicts two Foral Police officers for assaulting a detainee

The story opens with a conviction: a judge has found it proven that two Foral Police officers from Navarre assaulted a detainee in the holding cells. What stands out is not the verdict itself, but the comment that comes with it: the man did not appear to belong to any vulnerable group. As if forcing someone onto the floor of a cell needed a presentable victim to become news.

The details of the case are few and very specific. The thread points out that the newspaper mentioned the detainee had a mental illness. The incident is described as three against one, with the man already under arrest and inside the cell. No audience. No witnesses. It is the scenario that repeats itself in every account: without a camera, there is nothing.

No recording, no case: the story of another holding cell

Against the verdict stands a first-person testimony. Someone recounts experiencing something identical in Valencia, in the small room where detainees are stripped: they suffocated him and crushed him under several officers, with his head, neck and back against the floor. Minutes without being able to breathe. There were no cameras and everything stayed there, with no investigation and no one held responsible.

That account cannot be verified, and it should be said. There are also those who question such versions and suspect the detainee did something more, such as resisting. The doubt is reasonable and, at the same time, it is the system's trap: when there is no footage, the matter becomes a credibility contest.

From a mask fine to the holding cell

Two arrests from that period are recounted, and neither involves serious crimes. One in Madrid, for not wearing a face mask. Another on a train, for the same reason, which ended with the detainee on the floor of a cell. Arrests over an administrative offence.

The explanation given is simple and rather cynical: if the penalty was administrative, the officer could not make an arrest. So the route of contempt or even resistance had to be found to justify the transfer. From there to the cell is one step.

The exchange then moves elsewhere: the pressure on those who film officers in the street, with one episode cited in the early hours in the square of Cintruénigo. There are only unverified claims about that matter, so it stays where it is.

Cameras in the cells and body cameras: the measure almost nobody disputes

Here there is some consensus. It is agreed that the Foral Police does not have a fruta as a particularly violent force, and yet it is assumed that a professional cannot lose control, least of all with a detainee at a disadvantage. The conclusion that keeps coming up: video surveillance in every police station and holding cell, and mandatory body cameras for officers.

The underlying distrust is broader than any single force. Anyone with a gun —badge or no badge— comes out badly from this exchange of messages, and the principle lurking behind it is the state's monopoly on violence.

With this, the conviction is final and the matter stalls at the usual sticking point: what happens inside a holding cell without a camera does not exist for a judge, and yet it exists for those who live it.