The policeman who ordered the 'kick in the door', to the judge: "The easy thing would have been to do nothing and withdraw"

The deputy inspector of the National Police who, on March 21, directed the operation that broke in without judicial authorization and knocking the door down at an illegal private party that was held in a Madrid apartment, contravening the health measures of the state of alarm then in force He assured Judge Jaime Serret last Friday, who is instructing the case for that event, that at all times he considered that his intervention was protected "by legality." According to the audio of the judicial interrogation, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the policeman, who appeared as a defendant,He highlighted that both the Ministry of the Interior and the General Directorate of the Police had issued internal orders in which the agents were urged to adopt “all the necessary measures” so that the restrictions agreed by the Government to minimize the risk were respected. expansion of the coronavirus.

The agent expressly referred during the interrogation to an order issued by the Deputy Police Operational Directorate on March 16, just five days before the event, and to an Interior order published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) at the beginning of the pandemic. In the first, which the agents also cited in the police report they raised after their action, the agents were generically urged to guarantee "the effectiveness and compliance" of the health security measures against the pandemic in private meetings without detailing instructions on access to enclosed spaces without judicial authorization. "They were general principles," admitted the deputy inspector to the magistrate. In the second,the department of Fernando Grande-Marlaska indicated that “non-compliance or resistance to the orders of the authority” could constitute a crime. "The easy thing would have been to do absolutely nothing and withdraw," explained the agent during his appearance. After hearing him and the other five policemen who intervened that day, the judge has agreed to prosecute all of them for a crime of burglary.

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  The kick in the door that ended an illegal party during the pandemic, seen by police and detainees

The police deputy inspector, who at all times assumed that the decision to knock down the door was his as the head of the operation, explained to the judge that both he and the other agents went to the apartment on Lagasca Street where the events occurred after receiving a Notice at 091, the police emergency number, due to the existence of loud noises coming from inside that prevented the neighbors from sleeping. The agent explained that when they went up the stairs of the building to the second floor, where the house was, they heard "screams, fights, knocks in different languages" and that these only stopped when they knocked on the door after not getting answers to their first calls. with the buzzer. “We ask you to open the door in order to go out onto the landing and identify yourself,because at no time was our intention to enter the interior of the home, "said the agent. And he added that they had had to go on many other occasions to parties that were bothering the neighbors during the state of alarm: "We would never think of entering." "It is a relatively simple procedure that is solved very, very quickly," he added.

The agent stated that, given the refusal of the occupants to leave and identify themselves in order to propose them for sanction for failing to comply with the rules of the state of alarm, he decided to enter the house considering that “a flagrant crime” of disobedience was being committed. "We consider that there was no other method of enforcing the law," he assured the judge, who went on to detail that, after trying to force the lock using two methods that caused less material damage to the door, they chose to pull it with a ram. "It was the last way for us," he said to reiterate shortly after his conviction that "we were protected to act in that way."

"Did you ever understand that these people were giving their consent to open, to break down the door?" Judge Serret asked him. “We did not know if the person who told us that they would not come out and that they would not open the door [the young woman who appears in the first broadcast video talking to the agents through the door and refusing to let them in if they did not have a court order] was the owner of the home or someone else, or what was happening inside ”, was the agent's response. "The fact of not opening the door after half an hour implies that they did not want to open it," replied the magistrate, before adding by way of summary: "You know that you did not have judicial authorization, you know that you did not have the consent of this person and you it considers that they were committing a flagrant crime to justify their entry ”."In our opinion, yes," the policeman stressed.

The magistrate also asked the deputy inspector if he did not consider, instead of entering by slamming the door down, to remain at the door to wait for the occupants to leave. “There are some people who are inside, we don't even know the amount, which could be 30 because of the music and the noise they made [finally there were 14], and as the person in charge, I believed that a patrol [two agents] would post at the door to wait for For them to go out is to put those policemen at risk, "said the deputy inspector, who added that the situation could lead to" either the injury of the officers or the impunity of the offenders. "

The head of the police operation stressed on several occasions that the house was a tourist apartment and detailed to the judge several indications that this was the case: from the lack of a name on the mailbox or the numerous "advertising and papers" that accumulated inside from this, to the testimony of the neighbors who assured that in that apartment no one resided permanently and that it only served to celebrate parties from Thursday to Sunday. "From everything he saw, he did not consider it to be a home," he told the judge. "Don't you consider that tourist flats are housing?" The magistrate then asked him. "Yes, if it is used to dwell, not if it is used occasionally to have parties with a group of friends," was the agent's response.

Later, the sub-inspector added that none of the occupants said after the arrest that that floor was their residence and stressed that the one who turned out to be the tenant (and who has filed the complaint against them and has provided a rental contract for the apartment for a year) even provided a London address as a domicile.

When the controversy broke out days after the event, the Ministry of the Interior defended that the agents had intervened within the law and argued that the house "would not constitute a residence" as it was supposedly a tourist property and that, therefore, the judicial authorization to enter.

This argument was publicly rejected by numerous jurists.