The Mossos d’Esquadra are looking for the man who yesterday savagely assaulted half a dozen women who were waiting for the subway on the platform of Camp de l’Arpa station on the L5 in Barcelona. The security cameras of Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) recorded the assaults and the security staff detained the individual and handed him over to a Catalan police patrol, which then did not arrest him.
At that time, according to sources in the investigation, there was only one assault. It was later, once the images were viewed, that it was found that the individual had assaulted several women on the platform. A selective attack in which the suspect only looked for women and avoided the men who were there, so it is not ruled out that, if he is arrested, he could be charged, in addition to the injuries, for a hate crime.
The suspect’s first victims were slapped or punched as the individual advanced along the platform. And it was in the fifth of the series that he hit so violently that he threw her to the ground. The woman hit her head when she fell. After this assault, the man started to run, and even during the run he continued to hit women.
The attacks took place shortly before ten in the morning. The Catalan police later reported that the individual had five previous antecedents. It is not ruled out that he has been diagnosed with some mental illness considering the way he acted.
The police from the metropolitan transport security area, Asmet, who have the metro as one of their work scenarios, are now in charge of locating the individual in order to re-arrest him. The unit works in coordination with TMB’s private surveillance staff and is fed by the images that arrive at the control and security center, which monitors almost the entire suburb with a large number of cameras.
Police have not released the type of prior crimes because the suspect has five priors, although they expect the arrest to be made over the next few hours.
