Last Saturday, Jaume García Valls turned 65 years old. That is why on Friday, the commissioner of the Mossos d'Esquadra, responsible for the last 12 years of the internal affairs division, retired. García Valls is the first Catalan police commissioner to hang up his uniform at the age limit and he does so in a year that will also be followed by commissioners Xavier Creus, Josep Milán and Joan Martínez Roma.
Despite its 300 years of history that are now commemorated, the first promotion of the Catalan police was not called until 1983. And as García Valls recounted on Friday after passing the internal affairs junk to his successor, the mayor Pere Pau, the first Those who arrived, like him, had the opportunity to participate in the design of a police force that was completely to be done.
And he did it after going through different responsibilities in the territory, from internal affairs, the one known as police within the police. A division that the new structure decree of the Mossos will convert into a police station and that is in charge of investigating the comrades.
García Valls is aware of the resentment that internal affairs work generates among some colleagues. But he defends the work, ensuring that these extremely complex investigations, which are directed at people you have known for years, have a lot to do with the high scores that the public makes of the Catalan police.
The commissioner retires after nearly 40 years of service. He feels butterflies in his stomach and a need to pay back his family's stolen time.
