"They punched us and hit us with barstools": a group of Spanish policemen started a drunken bar brawl
"They were shouting ‘speak Spanish or don’t speak at all’", a waiter told ARA
BarcelonaIn an interview with ARA, Cristian, the owner of a bar in the Born district of Barcelona declared that "there were seven of them and they were well-behaved at first, but the more beer they drank, the louder and louder they got". He went on to say that the group of Spanish Police officers (Policía Nacional) ended up physically assaulting him and a waiter on Tuesday night. "We’re Italians, so we speak Italian to each other, but they thought that we were Catalans and they were shouting ‘speak Spanish or don’t speak at all’ and they sang the Spanish national anthem". When things started to get out of hand and we asked them to leave, one of them became aggressive and the others joined in and a scuffle broke out. According to Catalan radio station RAC1 —and as confirmed to this newspaper by sources familiar with the case-, the Mossos have opened an inquiry into whether the Spanish police are guilty of assault.
After several rounds of beer, and becoming more and more rowdy, it looked like the Spanish police were going to leave, but they decided not to. A waiter told them they were about to close and, according to Cristian, one of the officers reacted angrily and shouted "You open and close when I tell you, I’m the law!", with which he began to pummel the bar.
According to the bar owner’s own account, the policeman went behind the bar and grabbed the waiter by the neck, causing the bar owner to rush over to try and separate them. In the ensuing melee they fell to the ground, leading the other policemen to join in, armed with stools. "They punched us and hit us with barstools," he said. "It lasted around 15 or 20 minutes. We were helpless since they were police and we couldn’t retaliate", he told ARA.
During the fight one of the police officers broke off one of the beer pumps —I was able to confirm that it is missing— and caused other damage to the establishment. The bar owner was able to set off an alarm, leading passers-by and the owners of neighbouring bars to call the Mossos. It was shortly before than 10:00 p.m. and the National Police were out of uniform; It looked like a fight between members of the public. However, when the Mossos arrived, the bar owner still felt helpless. "They greeted the policemen, as if they knew each other. They didn’t treat them the way they’d have treated ordinary members of the public who’d done something like that", he declared. One of the Spanish police officers claimed his cell phone had been stolen. Eventually the Mossos found it behind the bar, presumably where it had fallen when the officer had grabbed the waiter by the neck, before ending up on the floor.
"The Mossos acted like they were the servants of the police", he went on to say "one of them, having pulled his shirt off, shouted at the Mossos and told them that they were nobody and that they were the law". In the end the Spanish Police officers left and the Mossos wrote up a report. The waiter and the owner went to see a doctor for a medical report of their injuries. Cristian states that he "is convinced" he will report the matter to the police, claiming that he was unable to do on Tuesday night since when they arrived at the police station on Carrer Nou de la Rambla, after 2:00 a.m., the police refused to take their statements. For Cristian, the worst part of the whole affair is the subsequent feeling of helplessness he has been left with.
