Erne union demands weapons for Basque local police following Azpeitia homicide
The police union Erne denounces that several Gipuzkoa municipalities continue without equipping their officers with standard-issue firearms, despite favourable court rulings.
Basque local police without standard-issue firearms despite court rulings
The Basque police union Erne has denounced that several Gipuzkoa councils, including Azpeitia, continue to keep their local police officers without standard-issue firearms despite court decisions that support their provision. According to Google News ES — Crime (es), the complaint comes one day after a man died from a gunshot wound in that locality, on Tuesday night. The search for the alleged perpetrator continues on Wednesday without any arrests having been made.
In a statement, Erne clarified that favourable court rulings on the arming of local police forces have been issued in Eibar, Zarautz, Bergara and Tolosa. Nevertheless, the union warns of the "unnecessary risk to which some municipal officials continue to expose their officers".
The organisation has described the situation as "hardly justifiable" and has recalled that it has had to resort to the courts "in the face of the refusal of certain municipal authorities to equip their police officers with standard-issue firearms". "The verdicts we have won in Local Police forces such as those in Eibar and Tolosa have vindicated our positions; however, there are still councils that continue without taking the necessary steps," the union reiterated.
Among the localities identified are Azpeitia, Oiartzun and Hernani, whose officers "carry out their duties daily without having this element of protection and security". Erne has also emphasised a factor it considers particularly striking: in some cases, "firearms have been acquired and stored in Civil Guard facilities for years, without municipal officials having taken the necessary step for them to finally be assigned to officers".
The union has rejected that the debate is "an aesthetic, ideological or different policing models matter" and has insisted that it is a matter of safety. Local police officers, it has argued, work "on the street" and face situations "that cannot be foreseen".
"We respond to crimes, assaults, gender violence, robberies, altercations, threats and all kinds of emergencies. Any of those actions could evolve, in a matter of seconds, into a scenario of extreme gravity," the statement said.
For Erne, the homicide on Tuesday in Azpeitia "demonstrates once again that the risk exists and that any" of the officers "could find themselves, without prior warning, facing a situation of extreme gravity". The union concluded by demanding that councils that have not yet acted "put an end to this situation and equip their police with the necessary means to carry out their work safely".
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)