❓WHAT HAPPENED: A leaked recording revealed local police in Torelló, Spain, admitting they are unable to control violent migrant groups and have been forced to retreat from dispatch calls.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Local police, residents of Torelló, and migrant groups, primarily described as young men from the Maghreb.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The incidents occurred in Torelló, Catalonia.
💬KEY QUOTE: “They are laughing at us. They are throwing us out. If we don’t want to get hurt, we too [must leave],” said a local police officer in the leaked recording.
🎯IMPACT: Residents have organized a rally to demand action, while local authorities have acknowledged the issue and announced plans to strengthen the police force.
Torelló, a town in the Spanish region of Catalonia, is facing growing unrest after a leaked police recording revealed that local officers feel unable to handle violent migrant groups in certain neighborhoods. The recording, confirmed as authentic by local authorities, features a police officer explaining how they were forced to retreat from around 25 rioters on Sant Josep Street due to being severely outnumbered. “They are laughing at us,” the officer says. “They are throwing us out. If we don’t want to get hurt, we too [must leave].”
Residents claim that the area has become a hub for fights, intimidation, and antisocial behavior. The recording has spread quickly through the community, reinforcing a growing belief that law enforcement is losing control. In response, residents are organizing a protest outside the town hall on Monday evening to demand tougher action from local leaders.
Torelló’s Security Councillor, Elisabet Viñas of the Republican Left, confirmed the audio’s legitimacy. “The Local Police are going there, they are there, and have arrested them many times. The laws are not strong enough, nor justice fast enough to get rid of these filthy people,” she said. Viñas blamed the issue primarily on young men, “mostly foreigners from the Maghreb”—Islamic North Africa—who she says are squatting in apartments and involved in burglaries and store break-ins.
Municipal sources admit the problem extends beyond Torelló. Across Catalonia, concerns over crime have intensified, with official statistics showing that foreign nationals are disproportionately involved in serious offenses. The Catalan capital of Barcelona now leads Spain in violent robberies.
The situation in Torelló is drawing comparisons to “no-go zones,” the subject of a 2017 book by The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, where police struggle to enforce the law against large migrant and migrant-descended populations. For instance, in Berlin, Germany, the city’s police chief has advised Jewish and LGBT residents to be cautious in neighborhoods with large Arab populations, saying there are areas where such people may not be safe.
In other Western cities, including Dearborn, Michigan, police are now using Arabic-language identifiers in migrant-heavy areas.
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