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In the Balma dels Trabucaires area, near the Goitallops de Taradell housing estate, in the Osona region, we find the Pedra dels Trabucaires or Pedró als Mossos d'Esquadra, which I photographed for Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
It is a monument in memory of two young police officers who died in the line of duty during a shootout with bandits when they went to free some hostages who were victims of a kidnapping.
We have to go back to February 27, 1845. That winter was very hard. A group of trabucaires, formed after the first Carlist war, attacked the carriage that made the route from Girona to Barcelona in Tordera.
In that action, the bandits took three hostages that they kidnapped, known as Massot de Darnius, Roger d'Empordà and Bellver de Girona.
On March 25, 1845, trabucaires were detected around the Can Pere Sala house, so the neighbors notified the police.
A group of police officers arrived at the scene and, while carrying out the checks, there was an exchange of shots with the bandits. The result of the scuffle was the death of two police officers (Isidre Pallarès and Joan Barnet) and one of the kidnapped people, Roger d'Empordà.
The bandits managed to flee and take refuge in the nearby Balma de los Trabucaires before fleeing to France, where, according to some chronicles, they were finally captured and executed.
The monument that we still find today in this area of Taradell contains a commemorative inscription in which it is reported that the two mossos d'esquadra died "doing their duty and fighting against the trabucaires."
