In December 2020, the creation of the central sexual assault unit (UCAS) marked a before and after in the treatment of the most serious sexual crimes (it goes without saying that all assaults are terrible for the woman who suffers them).
That modest unit, which was born at the insistence of those then in charge of the Mossos d’Esquadra criminal investigation general police station, had as a priority placing the victims at the epicenter of investigations that from the very beginning worked hand in hand with a group of analysts in charge of examining with a magnifying glass the barrage of daily complaints.
Three years later, the Catalan police go a step further and now focus their gaze on the aggressors, strengthening this analysis group, which now has the rank of a unit, and which will be in charge not only of collaborating with the investigators by providing profiles of suspects, but will also supervise the monitoring and surveillance of the thousand sexual aggressors currently at large in Catalonia.
Yes, you have read it correctly and the figure is scary. In Catalonia, the Mossos control, monitor or protect in some way about a thousand men who at some point have been protagonists of sexual crimes, who are free, and those who are pending. Or because they are complying with a precautionary measure issued by a judge or have an international or national search and capture order. There are also, and they are the most dangerous, 18 men released after serving their respective sentences, who have not participated in any reinsertion program or if they have, they have failed, and of whom there are reports indicating that there is a high risk of them reoffending. They do not accept the crime they committed, nor do they regret it.
The Prosecutor’s Office is in charge of ordering the Mossos to monitor these men after serving the sentence and the manner in which it is carried out. In any case, it is a discreet police monitoring, which cannot be invasive because they do not have pending cases. To this day, none have a 24-hour police control.
Sexual crimes continue to be the terrible protagonists of current crime in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. The road ahead in terms of preventing a crime that continues to grow continues to be a long one, as shown by the figures offered yesterday by the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, and the inspector Monsterrat Escudé, during the presentation of the new unit of analysis.
In the first half of this year, the Mossos d’Esquadra alone collected 2,063 complaints for sexual crimes and assisted 2,412 victims. The division is scary, but it is convenient to do it because it means that every day, and only in Catalonia, 13 women go to a police station to report that they have suffered a sexual assault. This without counting all those who denounce at a municipal police station, the National Police, the Civil Guard, or the many who are still silent due to multiple factors ranging from fear to mistrust.
The figure indicates a growth in the number of complaints of 16% in relation to the same semester of the previous year. A figure that Inspector Escudé wanted to interpret positively, because it can. Because this increase in complaints also deserves reading the awareness that began to materialize after the violation of La Manada in Pamplona and that has allowed a legislative change and a new way of managing these crimes by the police, judicial and socially that has pushed many victims to cross the threshold of the police stations.
The Mossos expect the new analysis unit to start working after the summer. Along with the current UCAS, both units will integrate the new central area for sexual violence that will double the number of police officers, mostly women, starting with the person in charge, inspector Kira Estrada.
The work methodology will not change, because it is working and the UCAS has become a benchmark in research that has already crossed borders. The complicated investigation that he found with the alleged sexual offender from Igualada, during the castanyada of 2021, put the focus on this group of researchers. By the way, the judge in charge of the case informed Brian Raimundo Céspedes Mendieta yesterday that he will not only be tried for an alleged crime of sexual assault, but that he will also be accused of attempted murder.
The UCAS shielded the victim and to this day it still accompanies her every time, like yesterday, her case breaks into the media or she has to carry out some procedure.
Over time, the unit faced another case that marked the new work methodology that is now consolidated. The so-called rider rapist. A fake delivery man who took advantage of the pandemic restrictions to rape five women.
In that case, and by the hand of the prosecutor who participated in the trial, Alexandra García Tabernero, the Mossos prepared a report analyzing the conduct of the aggressor that allowed a pattern to be established that linked the then defendant with the five victims. The prosecutor requested that this UCAS analyst participate in the trial as an expert and his account was essential for the sentence of 11 years in prison.
