A deathly silence has taken over the Sant Roc neighborhood of Badalona. On Sunday afternoon, a vehicle stopped without turning off the engine at number 19 Còrdova Street, next to a square where drug buying and selling is common. An individual armed with an automatic pistol emptied the magazine, eight shots, aiming, according to some witnesses, at the place where two minors were playing. A ten-year-old girl received a clean shot to the elbow, with entry and exit wounds, and a bone fracture.
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After the gunshots, there were desperate screams, crying, and running from the girl’s family, who loaded her into a car and literally flew to the Espíritu Santo hospital in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, where she received initial emergency care, before being transferred to Can Ruti, where she is recovering from the injuries and the shock.
The police do not rule out that the man fired at a wall and a ricocheted bullet injured the girl
The gunman, who according to witnesses collected by investigators fired without getting out of the vehicle, fled the scene at high speed. Locating him has become a priority for the Catalan police.
The forensic police and the homicide group cautiously collect the accounts of some witnesses, including family members of the victim, who claim that the man fired directly at the spot where the girls were. However, the police do not rule out that the gunman fired at a wall, a warning shot, and that one of the bullets ricocheted and injured the girl’s elbow.
The incident, “especially serious,” has put the police chiefs of the Badalona station and the northern metropolitan police region on alert.
“In Sant Roc, a tense calm has been experienced in recent hours where any foolishness can escalate into a more serious incident,” admit the same sources.
The police strategy immediately involves saturating the neighborhood as much as possible with uniformed officers to carry out controls and identifications.
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On Sunday night, the mobile brigade was mobilized in the streets of Sant Roc, and since early yesterday afternoon, ARRO vans have been passing more frequently along with citizen security patrols, in coordination with the Badalona local police.
Eight shots: the gunman was armed with an automatic pistol whose magazine he emptied in a place with minors
Several incidents, unrelated to each other, have put Sant Roc in the police spotlight. On Tuesday, shots were fired at the doors of a building. An event involving Pakistani citizens who wanted to recover an illegally occupied and sublet apartment, with threats and extortion involved. Therefore, those shots have nothing to do with the ones on Sunday afternoon, involving two Roma families from Sant Roc, well known to the Mossos and local police and with records for drug trafficking.
On Thursday, Sant Roc was also the scene of another incident, unrelated to the previous two, but which adds tension to the already complicated coexistence. A Pakistani man from the neighborhood hired the sexual services of a Roma woman. When she demanded the previously agreed amount, the man tried to dissuade her and attempted to convince her to pay with drugs he had in an apartment. The differences led to an altercation in which the man fell from a fourth floor. The woman is detained and the man is critically hospitalized at Can Ruti hospital, with serious concerns for his life.
None of the three incidents are related but they all take place in an already troubled neighborhood where the presence of firearms linked to marijuana cultivation in apartments and drug trafficking is an undeniable reality.
The investigation into the shootings has been taken over by the homicide group of the northern metropolitan police region. They have data from the investigative police of Badalona and Sant Adrià, who know very well who is who in the neighborhood. Now, they are waiting to locate the gunman and prevent, at all costs, any attempt at revenge.
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