The exetarra and film producer José María Lara,
Txepe
, has been arrested in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés after a street brawl.
The former ETA member, who was a member of the organization until the 1980s, allegedly took the baton from a Municipal Police agent during a riot started by two young people outside a betting shop, who have also been arrested.
The police report reflects that the 75-year-old filmmaker allegedly took the regulatory defense weapon from the agents, and then, according to investigation sources, blurted out: "I'm going to put it up your ass."
The images of the arrest have caused a stir on social networks, due to the force used to reduce the septuagenarian.
The events occurred last Saturday, around nine o'clock at night, when a patrol of the Municipal Police came to separate some young people who were participating in a brawl.
One of them, 21 years old, refused to identify himself and threw a punch at one of the agents, who managed to dodge the attack, for which he was arrested, the municipal officials stress.
The young man, of Moroccan origin, resisted arrest and began to bang his head against the partition that separates the front and rear seats of the patrol car.
Faced with this situation, the municipal police officers had to remove him from the vehicle and at that moment he began to hit the trunk of the car.
At this moment, a second young man appeared, of the same age and nationality, who also attacked the policemen, for which he was subdued by the agents and arrested.
It was then that Txepe Lara appeared in the middle of the brawl and snatched the baton from one of the policemen.
He too, according to sources of the investigation, made threats against the agents, for which he was subdued and arrested, as can be seen in a video of the arrest broadcast on the social network Twitter.
In the images you can see how up to three policemen come to reduce Lara, who is thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
Lara would have gone to Madrid to participate in the central act of Podemos.
The scene led to the arrival and intervention of a large crowd that made it difficult for the police officers to act, who had to ask for reinforcements, so that up to a dozen patrols of the Municipal Police and also some of the National Police went to the scene. .
Likewise, four municipal agents had to be assisted by SAMUR-Civil Protection and later by their workplace accident mutual due to the attacks received during the operation, according to the same sources consulted.
José María Lara was a member of ETA until the eighties.
He was imprisoned during the last years of the Franco regime for belonging to ETA and was pardoned in 1976. As a film producer, he has made more than 30 feature films.
He won the Zinemira award at the 2019 Donostia Film Festival for his entire career, which began in 1985 linked to still photography and camera assistant tasks.
In his filmography as a producer there are titles such as
Justino, a murderer of the third age
,
Blindly
or
El cielo gira
.
Complaints
The president of the United Podemos parliamentary group, Jaume Asens, has denounced that the police action "deserves an investigation for disproportion and degrading treatment," as he wrote on his Twitter account.
The deputy has criticized that up to "5 Madrid policemen" pounced "on an old man", for which he has requested that the facts be clarified.
The deputy of Podemos in the Madrid Assembly, Agustín Moreno, has also denounced the actions of the police, which he has described as "police brutality".
"In the Madrid of Almeida and Ayuso in the Spain of the gag law," Moreno wrote in a tweet in reference to the images that emerge from the arrest.
This action by 5 Madrid police officers on an elderly man deserves an investigation for disproportion and degrading treatment.pic.twitter.com/9ZLz4Ws6b7
— Jaume Asens (@Jaumeasens) April 16, 2023