The Independent Union Central and Officials (CSIF) accuses the mayor of The Acentejo Massacre, Ignacio Rodriguez (PSOE)and the councilor responsible for Police, Manuel Lorenzo Chavesof “failing to comply with the regional regulations regarding the Law of Coordination of Local Police of the Canary Islands“for the alleged use of municipal security guards and Civil Protection volunteers to develop functions of the local policesuch as cutting off traffic or removing vehicles from public roads “without the presence of the competent authority”.
“Despite the fact that the aforementioned law prohibited the figure of municipal guards since 1997, in those municipalities that had a Local Police, the Municipality of La Matanza published on June 17, 2020 the bases for the selection of the aforementioned guards and the constitution of reserve lists, without the Government of the Canary Islands challenging the procedure ”, holds CSIF it’s a statement.
In addition, this union denounces “malpractice and alleged irregularities” committed in the days of the past Easterwhen the councilor of the Police area issued a decree authorizing and empowering the Civil Protection group and guards of public spaces to carry out functions of traffic cuts in all sporting or other events”.
In the opinion of this union, “with this decree an attempt was made to give a legal appearance to the premeditated and manifestly illegal actions that were subsequently carried out, consisting of authorizing the municipal security guards to remove vehicles from public roads through the contracted towing service , without mediating a complaint from the competent authority. The residents of the municipality found that their parked vehicles were removed from the public road without any legal protection and without the authorization of the competent authoritysince on urban public roads this function corresponds to the Local Police of that municipality and on interurban roads to the Civil Guard of Traffic”.
In addition, CSIF ensures that “the municipal vigilantes and volunteers from the Civil Protection group were in charge of carrying out the traffic cuts both on urban and interurban roadswithout being under the command or instructions of the security forces and bodies, as can be seen in different videos that circulate on social networks.
This trade union center considers that these behaviors may have meant “the usurpation of functions of the Local Police and the Traffic Civil Guard by municipal guards and volunteers from Civil protection by order of the aforementioned public officials, which goes against the development of police work.”
CSIF also shows “great concern about these bad practices and the disastrous way of managing security in the municipality of The Acentejo Massacrewhich also make them extensible to the entire Canary Islands, since the mayor of La Matanza is one of the promoters of the draft amendment to the Local Police Coordination Lawsupported by the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (Fecam) and the Government of the Canary Islands, that the only thing pursued with said modification is to make a change contrary to the basic regulations of the State and the Organic Law of Security Forces and Corps to provide coverage for actions that to date do not have any legal protection. They also question the legality of “the introduction in the bases of the call for three Local Police posts published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife dated March 23, the creation of a list with the applicants who have passed the selection process and who have not obtained the status of career civil servants, in order to cover possible vacancies that may subsequently arise. Something forbidden in the specific regulations of the local police forces of the Canary Islands».
EL DÍA has tried to find out, without success, the version of the Government of Matanzas (PSOE) about this complaint of the CSIF union
