6 Spanish police officers admit to racist attack but avoid jail time

OVIEDO, Spain

Six police officers admitted to a racially motivated violent encounter with a young man in a Barcelona court on Monday.

But in a settlement deal, they will avoid having to spend time in prison and will be suspended from their duties for six months.

The incident dates back to 2019 when a young Black man, alias Wubi, encountered the Catalan police in the city of Manresa, just outside of Barcelona. They had been tasked to clear an occupied building and started talking to him in the parking lot.

Wubi gathered an audio recording of the incident, which paints a vivid picture of what happened.

First, Wubi is heard asking why the police stopped him. They say it was because he was running. Then it quickly escalates and sounds like the police are beating him. “They’re hitting me! I haven’t done anything! I swear,” he shouts.

Eventually, he brings up racism directly.

“Why are you like this? You are racist, right? It’s because I’m Black, right?” he asks. One officer says “yes.”

When he says the Spanish equivalent of “please, brother,” while crying that he’s getting strangled, another officer replies: “Do I look like I’m related to you?”

Screaming, Wubi says, “Please, I’m a human like you.” One officer replies: “You are a monkey.”

In the nearly eight-minute recording, members of the police group also threaten to smash his face in, called him the racist insult “negro de mierda,” said he should have run all the way to Africa and admitted to being racist.

On Sunday, the day before the trial began, Wubi released a video explaining why he went public, saying: “This isn’t from somewhere else, it happened here. It’s real … They hit me, humiliated me, insulted me and made me feel worse than s***.”

As part of the plea deal, the six police pled guilty to a racially driven crime against moral integrity. They each received one-year prison sentences, which they will not have to serve behind bars due to their lack of criminal record.

They will also have to pay the victim €80,000 ($85,000), stay at least 500 meters (1,640 feet) away from him for the next four years and attend a course about human rights before their six-month suspension from duty is finished.

Upon hearing the sentence, security had to remove two activists from the courtroom as they shouted that it was a shameful decision and called the police officers racists.

Lorena Anton, Wubi’s lawyer, later told the media that her client preferred to end the trial quickly and avoid having to testify yet again. She also emphasized how long it took for the case to get to court and all the “hoops” the authorities put them through.

The police officers had continued working since the attack occurred in 2019, even though it was reported at the time. Only after the audio went public in 2020 were they shuffled around, according to Spanish daily El Diario.

According to the latest report from the organization SOS Racismo, police were the largest perpetrators of reported racism in Catalonia in 2022. Of the 110 new cases the organization took on, 22% had to do with racism on the part of public security officers.