Vozpópuli: Police officer to Montero, 'a citizen like any other'

‘I am an MEP’: When a title doesn’t impress a police officer

A National Police officer facing Irene Montero, according to the video released by Vozpópuli. She shouts ‘I am an MEP!’. He replies: ‘I don’t care, she’s a citizen like any other’. The exchange lasts seconds and summarizes a debate that has been open for decades: what is an official title worth when the uniform appears.

What peine between Irene Montero and a National Police officer

The video shows Montero confronting an officer and claiming to be an MEP. The policeman's response: she is a citizen like any other. There is no further context in what has been released: neither the reason for the clash nor if there was a subsequent complaint.

What is striking is not the gesture, but the pattern. In the debate, the scene is read as the umpteenth version of the phrase ‘Don’t you know who I’m talking to?’, the one attributed to officials of all stripes when reality contradicts them.

From ‘Do you know who I am?’ to the Cuenca councilor

The most cited precedent is that of Pilar Rahola. In February 1996, in the middle of an election campaign in Badalona, she allegedly used that same phrase to have her car released from the impound without paying the fine for illegal parking, according to the account that over the years has become associated with her figure.

Adding to the archives is the joke about the Cuenca councilor: the councilor who parks illegally in Madrid, invokes his position, and the municipal officer replies that a councilor from Cuenca is nothing there. ‘And in Cuenca too,’ admits the driver. The sarracena of the story has not aged at all.

The point where the analysis gets stuck

Criticism is not distributed evenly. Some point to the politician who brandishes her title to avoid a reprimand, while others also point to the police force, remembering that the scene involves two institutions. The video resolves none of that.