Last week, the leadership of the Mossos d’Esquadra requested the heads of the police regions to intensify the actions of the Daga plan, which prioritizes the removal of bladed weapons. After the tragic last weekend, with two stabbing deaths, a 41-year-old woman in Esplugues and a 24-year-old young man hours later in Barcelona, and several clashes with injuries in which machetes were used, the commanders of the Catalan police again requested yesterday to reinforce actions throughout the public space.
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The only common denominator among the different incidents is the use of bladed weapons. Ruled out, pending analysis of his phone, the terrorist motive in the Esplugues crime, the Barcelona homicide was carried out by a minor, Colombian, who was walking with his partner when he was surrounded by a group that intended to rob him, on Cera Street in Ciutat Vella. The minor delivered a single stab to a man, a 24-year-old Moroccan, which pierced his heart directly. The victim had recently arrived in Barcelona and had a recent arrest, from January, for robbery with violence. The juvenile judge ordered admission to a closed center for the alleged perpetrator, identified by numerous witnesses who witnessed the action.
The judge sends the accused of stabbing a 24-year-old young man in Raval to a juvenile center
On Sunday, at dawn, about thirty young people related to Latin gangs were identified in Marina de Sants square, from whom three machetes and several large kitchen knives were seized. They were organizing to respond to an attack by a rival gang, hours earlier.
The Interior Minister, Núria Parlon, intervened early in the morning in several interviews in which she defended the current strategy of the Catalan police, together with the urban guards, to combat the presence of weapons. “The plan is good and the figures are showing us that it works, but we must insist on the prohibitive culture of bladed weapons,” she said on RAC1, after admitting that this last weekend had been “especially painful.”
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The strategy Parlon referred to is related to the Daga plan and another recently created and dedicated especially to violent youth gangs, called the Ágora plan, which has been implemented in certain squares from Thursday to Sunday, without interruption, for three weeks.
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Regarding the Esplugues crime, investigators from the homicide group of the southern metropolitan police region suspect that the perpetrator was suffering a psychotic outbreak at the time of the act. Parlon also confirmed this in the same interview on RAC1, in which she denied a terrorist motive. “The detainee is a person who was in an altered state and probably has some kind of problem that has nothing to do with jihadism,” she stated. The Mossos d’Esquadra have not found any neighbor who heard the arrested person utter jihadist slogans. For that reason, for now, the investigation has fallen to the Esplugues investigation unit and has not been transferred to the central information unit, responsible for matters related to terrorism.
The events occurred last Saturday. A man of Moroccan nationality was arrested after stabbing a neighbor who had just left her house, on Joan Miró Street in Esplugues. There was no prior relationship between them and everything points to the victim being chosen at random. The wounds inflicted were very serious: stabs to the chest and abdomen until she was finally slashed. José Luis Pardo, a neighbor who had gone out to get the car, came across the scene. He had the vehicle parked on the parallel street, Pau Casals, and heard screams coming from the upper street. Both streets are connected by very wide stairs. He ran up and saw how the attacker wielded a bladed weapon and lunged at the woman. “He carried a large knife and a towel wrapped in the other hand. He had an athletic build,” he recounted on RAC1. José Luis drew the attacker’s attention and he headed towards him. “As he approached, I backed up. He tried to stab me; I tried to hit him and he ducked, picked up some stones and started throwing them,” he explained. The stones broke the car window and left him slightly injured.
After the confrontation, the attacker fled towards Barcelona, where minutes later he was arrested by the Mossos d’Esquadra on Diagonal Avenue, in front of the RACC. The emergency service mobilized a pediatric unit from the Sant Joan de Déu hospital. As the ambulance left the parking lot, a nurse ran to attend the victim. Upon arrival, he began resuscitation maneuvers but immediately warned that the deep cut on the neck was incompatible with life. Two pediatricians and another nurse arrived shortly after and could only certify the death.
The attacker will be brought before the court in the next few hours. He was a known person in the neighborhood and in recent months had been involved in several altercations, according to the neighbor. Residents identified him after seeing a photograph that circulated through WhatsApp groups. Shortly after his arrest, he was taken to a health center, where he tried to assault a Mossos d’Esquadra officer and had to be subdued. He arrived in Spain in 2007 and, although he left later, he returned again in 2017.
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