The residents of Horta de Lleida in the Terme de Grealó and Quatre Pilans districts are standing up to thieves on their own when they do not have the police nearby. In the last week they have suffered five robberies and two attempts. On the nights when they do not see Mossos d’Esquadra patrols, they form somatens, of fifteen people on weekends and seven or eight between Monday and Friday.
They organize themselves in cars and go around the houses, the houses are scattered in the area. They have already organized somates four nights. They have not been followed. If they see Mossos d’Esquadra patrols they return to their homes. If they do not see them, they drive their cars around and if they see strangers or vehicles that are not from the area, they notify the Catalan police.
“We go through the inhabited areas, making ourselves a little visible, so that a presence is seen and thus deter potential thieves a little,” explains David Poca, a member of the Grealó i Quatre Pilans Neighborhood Association who participates in the somatenes.
David Poca is one of the neighbors who went to one of the houses on Monday when the thieves had already broken a window. This is how he tells it: “My neighbor’s alarm went off, I called him immediately. Just at that moment they had just left the house. He reconnected the alarm and jumped again. We feared the worst. With other neighbors we went to his property and that’s when we saw a window had been blown out. “When they saw us approaching, they ran away.”
On that day he also says that the neighbors were “very upset” because they were waiting half an hour for the first patrol to appear and argues that in a case like this the Mossos d’Esquadra would have to appear immediately.
“And indeed _he adds_, minutes after appearing there was an attempted robbery at another neighbor’s house and luckily we already had the police nearby and they were able to thwart it.
He insists that these are unpleasant and risky situations for them and affirms that if they go out in somaten it is because they feel unprotected, because they have “no other choice.” “Yes, we have a reinforcement of the local police, but it is not the Urbana that corresponds to it,” he also says.
This Thursday the neighbors are scheduled to meet with Mossos d’Esquadra officials from the Lleida police station, from whom they demand a permanent patrol in the area.
For their part, the Mossos d’Esquadra assure that “somatenes do not help, nor are they recommended because they can hinder police work.”
The first somaton was held on Saturday night, according to Segre. Last weekend there were also two robberies from the Marimunt party. From one of the homes the thieves took several shotguns.
