Policeman arrested for holding up a petrol station

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The man gave himself up after robbing a bank in Jaén in 2010

SAN ROQUE The Guardia Civil on Sunday arrested a man accused of 'robbery with intimidation' at a petrol station near Estepona in December last year. He turned out to be a Local Police man from San Roque, who perpetrated a €600 bank robbery in Jaén in December 2010, and handed himself in at the time, according to Europa Sur. He was also suspected, but unproven, to have robbed a bank in Marbella in the same way: threatening staff with a broken bottle. The GC say that those crimes may have been related to drug usage. We wonder what excuse there may be now.

Abandoned or illegal cars removed from streets

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TARIFA At the beginning of the month, the local police had removed 31 vehicles from the town's streets, all of them in a state of abandon, or because they have been parked at the same spot for over a month (not allowed in most municipalities), or because they were uninsured and therefore not supposed to be on public roads, or because they could not be moved on their own. There were a large proportion of foreign registered cars among those removed, as well as several motorcycles, a caravan and a trailer. Owners had fifteen days to claim their vehicles, otherwise they would be taken to a breaker's yard for destruction, although owners would still be liable for fines and costs.

800 kilos of melons and watermelons seized for lack of health controls

Part of the confiscated fruit to be donated to Castellar Zoo

SAN ROQUE The Local Police seized some 800 kilos of fruit that was to be sold in the streets but lacked a health licence. Most of it will be destroyed to avoid health risks, but some will be donated to Castellar Zoo. The police hold regular checks and report to the veterinary services of the Junta, which orders, or not, its destruction. In any case, fruit that does not carry the proper licences and certificates cannot enter the food chain, other than for animals. The person who was handling it, has also been denounced and will have to go to court. The authorities ask that if there is any suspicion about where any food being sold in the street comes from, consumers should call the Local Police. There are also many reports, though nothing official, of a significant increase in fruit and vegetable robberies from local orchards and plantations.

Arrested for resisting arrest with violence

JIMENA The Guardia Civil announced in a statement yesterday that a man had been arrested for resisting arrest in an operation carried out in the village on Sunday. The man was apparently in a state of great agitation when being sought by the Local Police, who called in the Guardia when one of their number was injured in the fracas. The police was called in in the first place when neighbours saw the man behaving very violently, kicking in a door and screaming. On seeing the arrival of the authorities, the man allegedly attacked one of them, causing injuries. He was finally reduced and is now 'at the disposal of the courts'. There is an unconfirmed report that the same person caused injury to another in the area, who is now in a serious state in hospital. We will attempt to find out more.

Border queues cause illegal parking in La Línea

Parking in the park - a no-no
(Photo: europasur.es)

Local Police removed or fined 42 cars last week

LA LÍNEA The usual summer queues to enter Gibraltar, plus expensive parking on the Rock, mean that many drivers find it easier to park on the Spanish side and walk in. However, many of them do not relise that they are not allowed to park anywhere near the border other than in the 'blue zones', and ceratinly not on the grass (or dust?) of the Reina Sofía Park. So the Local Police are calling drivers to be responsible about where they park. Just last week they fined a total of 42 cars, and took away five of them. The park is a Green Zone according to local regulations, where vehicular traffic of any kind is strictly forbidden. At the beginning of last week the local newspaper Europa Sur published an article calling attention to many cars and caravans parked on grassland just the other side of the road adjacent to the border, which may have motivated the move by La Línea Council.

Kiosk was selling alcohol and contraband cigarettes

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(Photo: gurdian.co.uk)

JIMENA (Press release) Last Saturday, and as the result of a denuncia, the Local Police carried an inspection of a kiosk that, according to the denuncia, was selling bottled alcoholic beverages at retail and functioning as a bar. Several such bottles were confiscated, as well as some 60 packets of contraband cigarettes. The Local Police are trying to cut out illegal activities such as this, and have informed other such kiosks in the municipality of the legal consequences of the pertinent rules being flouted.

Local Police have K-9 unit

Agent Mena

JIMENA (Source: TioJimeno) The Local Police have had a canine unit since last May. Called Mena, the Belgian Shepherd female will be used for searching out drugs. The idea came from one of the officers, who was put in charge of training her with the help of Guardia Civil officer Raúl Corvillo González, of the canine unit in Algeciras. The results have been excellent, with a large increase in detection, including one operation that thwarted a man from selling a considerable amount of drugs at the Feria in San  Martín del Tesorillo. Small quantities have also been found hidden in and around a local bar.

Local Police rescue puppies from rubbish container

(Photo: TioJimeno)

We missed this last week on TioJimeno

CASTELLAR Local Police officers rescued three puppies on Thursday that had been abandoned in a rubbish container near Calles Chapatal and España. Only a few weeks old, they were taken to the station where they were fed and watered. One of them was almost immediately adopted by a neighbour, and is now called 'Poli' (short for policía, in case you wondered about our spelling!) The other two in the litter were waiting for a home over the weekend - and we will report about that as soon as we find out. This kind of thing is all too common and spekas volumes about the need to neuter our pets to avoid it. (And another thing: we do like to report good things when they happen - please tell us about them because they rarely get into the news.)

Guardia Civil investigate possible GHB-related rape

TARIFA A 19 year old woman from Barcelona was taken to the local health centre on Sunday morning. At six in the morning the Local Police found her wandering near the beach in a state of great anxiety and completely disoriented. Having started the evening out in the company of several friends, she thought she had at some point been raped, according to press release, which began an investigation by the Guardia Civil and led her to be taken to the Punta de Europa Hospital in Algeciras for an exploration. The woman was unable to describe any attacker or remember much about the incident, although as time went by she could recall that she had spent most of the night with a young man. All her symptoms are related to what is sometimes described as 'the rapist's drug', GHB, or Gamma Hydroxybutyric acid, and also known as scoop and 'liquid Ecstasy' - éxtasis líquido' in Spain. Like alcohol and potent>>>

Retraction on Local Police action in dog incident

JIMENA Further to our item regarding this dog, we had a visit from the two local police officers involved in the incident reported below. They were keen to point out that the person reported as kicking the dog was not the owner, but his father, and that there was no kicking involved as THEY WOULD NEVER ALLOW ANYONE TO GET AWAY WITH IT. Prospero/Alberto apologised profusely for neglecting to get their version of the incident in the first place and responding emotionally on the subject. EN ESPAÑOL: A continuación del artículo sobre este perro, me han visitado los dos agentes de la Policía Local que intervinieron en el asunto, con los siguientes puntos: primero, que no era el dueño del perro el que se presentó, sino el padre; y que no hubo patadas para con el animal ya que NUNCA PERMITIRÍAN TAL COSA EN SU PRESENCIA. Me he disculpado con ellos por no haber contrastado el tema directamente con ellos y por haber reaccionado emocionalmente sobre este tema.

Local Police already fining foreign-registered vehicles

Two groups having a botellón
by the castle walls
(Photo: europasur.es)

Botellón is forbidden, fines of €300

TARIFA (Agencies) Local Police have already denounced about ten vehicles that are known to be owned by local foreign residents, in accordance with the new regulations that are now in force. The newly reformed Law of Special Taxes (Ley de Impuestos Especiales, Law 39/2010 of December 22, Article 82 of the General Budget) says that foreigners resident in Spain must have their vehicles registered in this country, and pay taxes accordingly. There are numerous foreign-registered cars circulating daily in the municipality so the Local Police have not taken long to apply  the law, although they had previously offered plenty of information and warnings on the subject. On another matter, the local authority has forbidden the botellón (when and where people gather in public places to drink),>>>

Municipalities look to fines as cash cows

JEREZ The municipality of Jerez has just given notice that it is prepared to lower costs without lowering income. One of the ways it is proposing to do this particular bit of financial gymnastics is via fines. Although the report mentions only traffic fines, we would bet on them and every other municipality in deep doo-doo, finding a way of fining us for everything from painting a tiny spot on the house without a licence to following one as we walk the dog (did he pick it up?). In other words -and we are getting increasingly cynical- we are warned. Needless to say, there are other moves from the Government after today's Cabinet meeting (held usually on Friday but tom tomorrow's a national holiday).

25 Local Police have Christmas dinner at Town Hall entrance

Christmas Eve dinner

LA LÍNEA (Agencies) Some 25 members of the Local Police, who haven't been paid for six months held their Christmas dinner (on the Eve, as in all of Spain), with their partners, in the foyer of the convention center, where they have been holding their protest for ten days now. They were joined afterwards by some 50 more colleagues, and fifteen slept there 'to hold the fort'. A 'manifesto' was read before the meal, in which comradeship was often heard. "We couldn't do this without our families and colleagues," it read, "and we don't want to be a problem to Gibraltar, nor to the citizens of La Línea by demonstrating outside." "But we do have the right, and the obligation, to protest at the inhumanity of what is happening to all of us," said one demonstrator.

Police union criticises extended opening hours for bars

Local Police on patrol (Europa Sur)

TARIFA (Agencies) The union representing Local Police in Tarifa, UPLT, sent a letter to Mayor Juan Andrés Gil in which it says that municipal permission to extend local bars' opening hours should apply only to specific days and/or dates, not the whole summer. Their opinion is that this practice creates what it calls 'tourism of chaos'. It has also brought about numerous complaints from neighbours. Before the hours were extended, bars with music licences could remain open until 3am from Monday to Thursday, and until 4am on Friday and Saturday; the new ordinance allowed for an extra hour on weekdays, that is, until 4am every day. Thanks to the new hours, discotheques can now stay open until 7am. The union says that the law states that special permission for opening hours applies only to spacial occasions, such as ferias or holidays.

Two out of three patrol cars inoperative for lack of fuel

(Photo: Europa Sur)

LA LINEA (Agencies) Two of the three Local Police vehicles are parked and unused because the Council has not paid its accounts with Cepsa, according to the police union representative. This has apparently been so for five days and the third car is at present very low on petrol. In the meantime, the police are ptrolling on foot and the representative says it is possible that they will have to take buses to move about town, as they did last November when the police vehicles could not be taken for their MOT because the leasing company refused to present the proper documents as the Council had an outstanding bill with it. When the vehicles ran out of petrol, they had to be brought in by the municipal tow truck. UPDATE 04/06/11: It was reported that all three vehicles have had their tanks filled this morning.

Local Police carry out special service against mobile phone use while driving

LOS BARRIOS (Agencies/Photo: illustration only) A special campaign against distractions while driving was carried out by the local Police from April 4 to 11, with controls on 454 vehicles. Eleven drivers were reported for using a mobile phone while driving, and another for another infraction. Distraction caused 608 accidents last year on Spanish roads, and a total of 684 deaths as a result. Using a phone while driving multiplies by four the risk of an accident. There are no statistics on the application of make-up.

New police station ready for occupation

JIMENA (Press release) Mayor Pascual Collado and the provincial delegate of thje Junta de Andalucía, Gabriel Almagro, this afternoon visited the new police station building that has just been finished. With the mayor were Citizen Security Councillor, Andrés Beffa, that of Public Works, Fernando Gómez, and the Chief of Local Police, Francisco Espejo. The new building is located at the entrance to the village from the A-405, next to the old silo. According to Gómez, the last details, such as furniture and other facilities, are in the process of arrival, so the Local Police will soon be able to move in.

Local Police get classes on arrest techniques

LOS BARRIOS (Agencies/Photo: illustration only) Some twenty Local Police agents from all over the area have been attending classes in Los Barrios given by the FSP-UGT union. Classes, both practical and theoretical, centered on rest techniques and tactics for dangerous delinquents. Ending tomorrow, training consisted of 20 hours in total and have been aimed at the officers' being able to make quick decisions using the legal and practical resources available, as well as being able to correctly identify the corresponding legal procedures, among other things.

Local Police issue 31 court proceedings against driving offenders

LA LÍNEA (Press release) So far this year, some thirty-one court proceedings for various driving offences not subject to mere fines have been initiated by the Local Police, of which 17 were for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or both. The remaining 14 were for such things as driving without having obtained a licence, the loss of such on points or the licence being out of date.

Local Police forced use Internet to know how to implement anti-smoking law

ALGECIRAS - It was revealed recently by the police union that the town's Local Police have had to refer to articles on Intenet so that they could apply the new anti-smoking law. The matter came up when the union, USPLA, complained that the stations in Algeciras did not have what they called a 'Legal Advisor' to back up the many denuncias they receive and emanate. It is not a matter of more personnel, they said, just of having at least one man specializing in the legal aspects of police work. The union believes that there are some basic problems in terms of security in Algeciras, which they put to a new political group, UPyD, whose candidate for Mayor in the coming local elections, José Luis Fernández Núñez, added, "The problems stem from the need for some basic rules on how the Local Police operate, a document that has not been in existence since 2003."