Applause for police chief

SOME days ago, the chief of Cuevas del Almanzora’s Policia Local force removed squatters from an empty house.

To do so, he allegedly used his service pistol to shoot away a padlock and in no uncertain terms told the “okupas” to leave, according to Espejo Publico (Public Mirror) a magazine programme on the Antena 3 television channel.

“I won’t tell you again.  Yesterday you said you’d be gone by 5 in the evening and you haven’t,” he is heard to say in a video shot by the squatters.

“Get your things because you’re going.  Por mis huevos I’ll get you out of here, por mis huevos you’re going,” he added using a standard Spanish epithet.

This has now led to a formal complaint lodged by the squatters against the police chief although the public reaction has been one of unanimous support for him.

On his Facebook page Cuevas del Almanzora mayor Antonio Fernandez Liria expressed his “absolute confidence” in the Policia Local force “and especially in the police chief with regard to the occupation of a property in the municipality.”

So far, there has been no public statement from the Cuevas police chief although municipal sources have since claimed that the squatters had police records and were considered dangerous.