The Councilor for Security of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the defector Evelyn Alonso, says she based herself on information provided by the National Police Corps to point directly at young immigrants under the guardianship of the Government of the Canary Islands for the fights that have been taking place on some occasions in the city. Both that body and the Government Delegation in the Canary Islands have denied having provided the councilor with that information that she claims to have, according to an official written response that she herself has given to the municipal opposition.
To a specific question from the Socialist Municipal Group about what data the Department of Citizen Security manages “so that the responsible councilor has stated that the fights that are taking place between young people in the city are provoked, organized or caused by young migrants”, the answer It was specifically this: “The information that the National Police Corps sends us.”
Both the Canary Islands Superior Police Headquarters and the Government Delegation have denied to this newspaper that the National Police Corps has provided any information in this regard to the Department of Security of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council. More specifically, in the Government Delegation they refer to the answer that the Government delegate, Anselmo Pestana, offered to journalists last Wednesday, when an informant asked him specifically about those appreciations of xenophobic overtones of the turncoat councilor.
Pestana stressed that it is true that there are migrants who commit crimes, but that “this cannot become a kind of paradigm of something that is happening regularly because it is not true.” The Government delegate reported that most of the crimes committed by this group have to do with their legal documentation and with fights between their members.
“The Councilor for Security should speak better of her own municipality when the data is there, because in the case of Santa Cruz de Tenerife there has been a 10% drop in the crime rate” this last year, emphasized Anselmo Pestana. “Regardless of whether there is any specific event in which the Police acts by arresting those responsible and bringing them to justice, regardless of their nationality, origin or culture,” concluded the Government delegate.
The Local Police, headed by Councilor Evelyn Alonso, did not support the statements she made on the 16th during an interview on Cadena Cope. Quite the contrary, a union spokesman assured that the fights are mainly carried out by young people from the Canary Islands.
