The Ertzaintza will stop arresting people who display a knife in the Basque Country and, as a general rule, will limit itself to identifying the person, removing the weapon or dangerous object and filing a report of the minor crime of threats. The change in criteria by the Basque Autonomous Police was communicated by means of a circular to all agents, taking into account, as indicated in the communication, the interpretation that the judicial bodies make of the crime of threats (serious and minor). characterized by articles 169 to 171 of the Penal Code. The Erne union considers that this is a “setback” that will make the work of the ertzainas very difficult and, together with the other Ertzaintza unions with which they work in unity of action – Esan and Sipe – they will request meetings with the judicial bodies and the Prosecutor’s Office to resolve this “absurdity”. “We do not understand this change of criteria, which is very harmful to citizens, because we believe that arresting the person who threatens or intimidates is the right thing to do,” Erne’s secretary general, Sergio Gómez de Segura, told ElDiario. .es./Basque Country. “Those who carry a knife are arrested throughout Spain; we do not understand why it has to be different here,” he said. “You are protecting the criminal more than the citizen.”
The order of the Ertzaintza management to its agents, announced by the newspaper El Correo, was transmitted by an internal circular in which it is recalled that “in the judicial instances it has been stated on several occasions that the difference between serious death threats or mild character resides mainly in a qualitative and quantitative aspect. And in this sense, it emphasizes that “the seriousness of the threat must be assessed taking into account the time in which it occurs, the people involved and the previous, simultaneous or subsequent acts. Thus, it will be a serious threat when it is serious and credible, since aggressive behavior is potentially capable of carrying out the threatened harm.” Therefore, it concludes that “the simple carrying or display of weapons and potentially dangerous objects constitutes a minor crime of threat that does not make it a serious crime, but taking into account the circumstances of the fact, its context and the credibility that will be done in the face of this threat.
That is to say, “unless there is another offence or other circumstance provided for in the procedural rules for which the person is detained”, a single report will be drawn up identifying this person as the person under investigation, provided that the victim files a complaint. They are excluded from this investigation if this demonstration of the weapon takes place in a context of sexist violence, which will be subject to “specific differentiated treatment”.
“They are leaving the hot potato to the agents, who will have to decide in a matter of seconds whether to arrest him or not,” says Segura, from the Ertzaintza majority union. “If now we consider that a person should be arrested and then we are told in court that we have not acted well. What is that? Illegal detention? “We must be given tools to work on the streets, and we will also ask the Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales,” he says. “Someone appears on the street with a knife and must he cut you a little so that we can arrest him?” “It is absurd,” he insists. “It seems to us that judges and politicians must make it easier for us to work on the streets, and we are regressing. “I don’t know why this change of interpretation is due, but they are not doing us any favours in the dangerous situation we find ourselves in,” he says, recalling the events that occurred a few days ago in Germany where a man stabbed three people and the celebrations in the Basque capitals of “a real ordeal with knife attacks”. “The laws must be at the service of the citizens”, believes Segura, who warns that there could be a “call effect”. “If everyone could carry a knife without fear of being arrested for it, perhaps more people would take it out on the street.”
