In recent years, groups of vandals have broken up some major festivals where nothing had ever happened. The last episode took place at the weekend in Molins de Rei, but previously it had already happened during Mercè in 2021, in a lower proportion than in 2022, and reproduced in municipalities such as Sant Feliu de Llobregat in the same years. It is as if with Mercè the starting shot was fired to a wave of violence that is spreading through some metropolitan municipalities while taking advantage of the end of summer celebrations. As if vandalism took the tram and stopped at every station. Next stop: major festival of Sant Feliu de Llobregat. The City Council has already requested an emergency meeting with the Mossos d’Esquadra and the municipal police to strengthen security during the festivities, which begin on October 11. “We are dismayed by the incidents in Molins and we have already requested an emergency meeting this morning with the police officers”, says the first deputy mayor of Sant Feliu, Javier Molina.
In the case of Molins, the Catalan police have already identified four of the assailants, and just yesterday one was arrested by Barcelona police officers after stealing a mobile phone.
This is the profile of the rest of the fellow rioters. Groups of pickpockets, unsuspecting thieves, with a history, who go to or coincide with the crowds of major holidays. And, once there, if the theft of phones or wallets becomes complicated for them, they improvise a plan B and cause riots and assaults in establishments.
Those responsible for the southern metropolitan police region of the Mossos held a meeting early yesterday to analyze the events in Molins. It was presided over by the commissioner of the region, Miquel Esquius, and attended by the heads of the criminal investigation and information area and the head of the Sant Feliu police station, who oversees Molins. The commanders shared all the information of the weekend and ruled out that it was an organized group that went expressly to the major party with the idea of ??leading the riots whether yes or not. But they did admit to La Vanguardia that those already identified were “known” by investigators in the region and in Barcelona, ??and that they are habitual criminals looking for an opportunity.
The episode of vandalism is very reminiscent of what already happened in Barcelona at the Mercè festivities last year, when a group of teenagers with an identical profile not only carried out an avalanche of phone thefts, but after the concerts in Plaça Espanya led to acts of vandalism, looting and vandalism in the streets of Sants.
In Molins de Rei, the group advanced to the town hall square after destroying the dealership and making a bonfire that they fueled with everything they found from the car dealership. They crossed containers in the street, used construction fences and broke things until they reached a Vodafone store, next to the municipal market, after also vandalizing a Sabadell branch.
By then, the initial group had been joined by local youths who spurred on the criminals and who sometimes joined in the revelry of breaking and burning things. At the mobile phone store, they swept through all the exposed devices, ripped three TVs off the wall and took three more laptops. However, they could not enter the warehouse where they kept the rest of the terminals to sell them to the public. During the riots, no slogans were thrown or vindictive graffiti was done. Therefore, there is also no fixed political or social group where they can be located.
There were already riots in Molins de Rei two years ago. There was a stabbing, several fights, and the canopies of two bus stops and a bank were broken.
The riots forced the City Council to deploy the following year the largest police force in the history of the festivities, although there were some minor fights. In the neighboring municipality, Sant Feliu, in 2021 there was a massive theft of mobile phones, several fights and a stabbing. “At the time, the explanations given to us by the police were that the riots were carried out by young people who had not been able to go out at night for a long time due to the restrictions of the pandemic”, says the former mayor of Sant Feliu, Lídia Muñoz .
However, seeing the profile of the vandals and the numerous antecedents they accumulate behind them, the reality seems to be different. The mayor of Molins emphasized yesterday that the situation “exceeds the local level and exceeds the councils”. “We need a reflection as a country and to deal with this reality with another formula to combat it from another perspective”, he indicated. Meanwhile, the former mayoress of Sant Feliu recalls that “the Molins festivities serve as a thermometer to know what may happen next in Sant Feliu”.
