The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, will chair his second local safety board in February. It won't be easy. It will be held in the midst of a serious institutional crisis between the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Barcelona Urban Guard, as official sources from both institutions admit to La Vanguardia.
The deterioration of relations comes from afar and coincides with the arrival of Commissioner Eduard Sallent at the direction of the police and his project, shared with director Pere Ferrer, and the current head of the Interior, to "homogenize" relations with all the municipal police. Treat them all equally. A kind of coffee for everyone without going into singularities. In Barcelona, the objective is to "recover" and "order" competences, such as those of investigation, which by law do not correspond to the municipal police, but which the lack of cops and the growth of the Urban Guard have meant that in fact assume them in very specific cases.
In the beginning the situation was tricky, but in recent months relations have deteriorated to the point of reaching a serious crisis that was staged in a meeting that took place on November 27 in Interior. Jaume Collboni and councilor Joan Ignasi Elena participated, with their respective teams, among which was commissioner Sallent; the chief curator of Barcelona, Montserrat Estruch; the Major Intendant of the Urban Guard, Pedro Velázquez; the director of the police and the deputy mayor of Security, Albert Batlle. "The meeting was a disaster", agreed to point out the assistants of the two delegations.
The date started well. It was necessary to catch up on security issues, to reflect on the statistics of 2023, which are not good despite the enormous police activity of the two bodies. And debate about the generalized idea of perceived insecurity that is rooted inside and outside of Barcelona and that no longer depends on whether the complaints go up or down at the end of the year. It was when they finished that the councilor warned the mayor that the Guardia Urbana was acting with "disloyalty" with the Mossos and that operational coordination on the street "doesn't work". Batlle, Velázquez and the Security Manager, Maite Casado, did not hide their perplexity and responded to some harsh accusations made by Sallent and Ferrer. That night, Collboni phoned his team to convey his confidence and promise that he will work to restore the situation with Elena.
Since that day, things have gone from bad to worse, but not in the operational field, in which uniformed officers and commanders, from the last patrolman to Velázquez and Estruch, have managed, for the time being, to avoid the crisis and save this coordination
But what happened? This crisis can be explained in many ways. Each side has arguments to defend their attitude, but there are objective elements. In recent years, the Guardia Urbana has grown, and not only in terms of cash, and has strengthened and specialized at a rate that has allowed it to assign police officers to essential problems for the city and for which they offered to work with the cops The fight against small-scale drug trafficking was his first big bet and the setting, Ciutat Vella. The head of the Nou de la Rambla police station at the time created a joint investigation team to fight the narcopisos that incorporated four urban guards who worked hand in hand with the police. They had their box office at the Mossos police station. There were a few more. This first joint investigation team, with a sub-inspector, a corporal and half a dozen agents, started the never-ending great battle against the narcopisos. And the results were spectacular.
The following commandos of the Mossos decided to break up this group, not its operation. The urban guards had to return to their police station, but keep the team together. And this is how a protocol was systematized whereby each case generated the creation of a joint investigation team in which the urban guards could act as secretaries in the proceedings.
This month, the Mossos informed the Urban Guard that the time had come to put an end to the joint teams, that the Catalan police were regaining investigative powers and that the local policemen would no longer appear as secretaries.
The announcement fell like a bomb on the Barcelona police, where those in charge felt "despised" and "underestimated". The Mossos warned that they alone would not be able to maintain the current pace of work. In the last four years, these joint teams have intervened in 400 public health actions and closed an average of almost one narcotics a week.
The Mossos defend their attitude. "Nothing has changed or should change", they say. The new project to "order" the actions of the municipal police comes directly from Egara, headquarters of the directorate, and the person in charge of executing it is mayor Sònia Rius. Commanding Sallent's total confidence, the mayor met on Wednesday in the Zona Franca with the investigation officers of the Urban Guard to specify the new plan.
The Catalan police warn that "giving the Urban Guard powers that it does not have puts the investigations at risk" and therefore want to offer them "legal protection". They add to their reproaches that the Urban Guard does not respond favorably to requests to help the Mossos in the transfers of detainees to the courts or the repeated refusal to facilitate automated access to municipal data and to the images from the City Hall cameras.
The Urban Guard has had a hard time coping with the reverse. He considered from working on public health cases with the National Police to going to the guard court to try to prosecute his investigations. It would not be the first municipal police to do so. He also did not rule out giving up the fight against drugs and leaving the Mossos alone, despite knowing that many of the first pieces of information that warn of the presence of a drug gang come through neighbors who pass them on as nuisances to the Guardia Urbana .
It remains to be seen how the model will work. Initially, the Urban Guard will transfer to the Mossos the data it obtains on drug-related conflicts. And in each case it will be assessed if they work together despite the fact that it does not appear in the proceedings.
At the moment, this plan to regain powers does not affect the urban guards who appear daily as secretaries in the attestations, mostly for thefts, drawn up by the specialized unit, where they live with the police. In fact, there are prosecutors in Barcelona, such as the one from Estrangeria, Pilar Izaguirre, who strengthens joint teams with the Mossos, the National Police and the Urban Guard in their investigations against human trafficking.
It is difficult to predict the evolution of the problem. At a time when the statistics are not good, touching a working system that worked in a matter as complex as drugs could have its consequences.
Public health is not the only element of distortion. Last year, the Urban Guard took a giant step in the prevention of sexist violence by opening offices to collect complaints. Welcoming spaces that offer various services and that have an excellent assessment of the victims. A bet that has strained the management of the Mossos, who rejected the invitation to share those offices in Ciutat Vella and Nou Barris. They have also declined to be in the new coordination room of the Urban Guard that is being built in Paral·lel.
Relations between the Urban Guard and the Mossos date back to an agreement in 2004. 20 years have passed and neither the city nor the police are what they were then. Today, no one dares to open the debate on a new agreement that defines what everyone must do. Although the city deserves it.
