A SPECIAL police unit of 100 officers has been deployed to Valencia following a spate of fighting between youngsters which resulted in four stabbings last weekend.
The national government delegate to the Valencia Region, Pilar Bernabé, announced the deployment of the National Police in the region’s capital, especially in the city centre, in an attempt to avoid more outbreaks of scuffles amongst youngsters as had occurred during the long weekend of Halloween and All Saints’ Day.
Four assaults
An 18-year-old man who was travelling by metro from València to Torrent was injured in the early hours of Tuesday 1 November after being stabbed in the back. Meanwhile, in the early hours of Monday morning, two other people were stabbed. One of them, a 17-year-old boy who was stabbed twice in the torso at the Paiporta funfair, and the other, another young man who had to be taken to La Fe Hospital for treatment of his injuries.
These three assaults followed another that took place on the night of Friday to Saturday (28-29 October), when the National Police arrested a 27-year-old man in Valencia for stabbing another young man in the back, who he had no connection to, inside a nightclub.
Speaking on Cadena Ser radio, Bernabé said that the police officers would be deployed throughout the city, but mainly around Metro stations and the Estación del Norte area. She said: “In view of the latest known cases, the National Police has reacted as quickly as possible to prevent these situations and guarantee the safety of citizens.”
She continued: “We have maintained a constant dialogue with shopkeepers in the area, who have expressed their satisfaction with the work of the National Police.”
The operation, of a preventive nature, will remain active “in the medium and long term”. The work of the National Police will consist of identifying possible aggressors and locating blunt objects, bladed weapons and drugs that they may be carrying. According to the National Police, these events are “occasional” and do not represent “serious incidents”. “Valencia is a safe city”, they maintained.
The Valencia Report 