4F Case
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The 4F case concerns the events of 4 February 2006 in Barcelona, in which a policeman patrolling outside a
rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
was paralyzed after being hit by a falling object and nine people were arrested in consequence. At a trial two years later, seven people were convicted, one of whom was then pardoned. On appeal to the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
, the sentences were lengthened and one person committed suicide. The 4F case caused controversy and resulted in a film, ''
Ciutat Morta ''Ciutat Morta'' (, "Dead City") is a 2013 Catalan documentary about the 4F case, directed by Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega. The film covers the repercussions of the events of February 4, 2006, when a Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona, Guàrdia Urb ...
'', which argued that those convicted were not responsible for the policeman's injury. The film was viewed over 500,000 times when screened on Catalan television, which then created a further debate both about the case and more general issues such as police violence and
gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
in Barcelona. New mayor
Ada Colau Ada Colau Ballano (; ; born 3 March 1974) is a Spanish activist and politician who is the current Mayor of Barcelona. On 13 June 2015 she was elected Mayor of Barcelona, the first woman to hold the office, as part of the citizen municipalist pla ...
pledged to reform the Guàrdia Urbana and an investigation decided not to overturn the convictions.


4 February

On the night of Saturday, 4 February (4F) 2006, a
rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
was happening at the Anarkopenya squat at 55 Calle Sant Pere Mès Baix in the
Ciutat Vella Ciutat Vella (, meaning in English "Old City") is a district of Barcelona, numbered District 1. The name means "old city" in Catalan and refers to the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. ''Ciutat Vella'' is nestle ...
district of Barcelona. It had been occupied since 2002. When the Guàrdia Urbana (
municipal police Municipal police, city police, or local police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government. This includes the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive funding ...
) patrolled the area, objects including flowerpots were thrown from the roof. One policeman was hit on the head and fell unconscious. He became
tetraplegic Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or ...
and has never spoken publicly about the events. The police began to arrest people on the street including three men of Latin American ancestry with European passports, namely Alex Cisternas, Rodrigo Lanza and Juan Pintos. In total, there were nine arrests. According to the later testimony of Lanza and Pintos, the three men were beaten and tortured at the police station; their injuries were so bad that they were taken to . At the hospital, the police officers encountered Patricia Heras and Alfredo Pestenas, who had gone there after a bicycle crash elsewhere in the city; they checked their phones and decided to arrest them also.


Trial

At trial in 2008, seven people were convicted of their charges and were sentenced to between three and five years in prison. Mayor
Joan Clos Joan Clos i Matheu, GCIH (; born 29 June 1949) is a Spanish politician who was mayor of Barcelona, Spain from September 1997 to September 2006. He took over from Pasqual Maragall in 1997. In 1999 he was elected to a four-year term, and was the ...
had said on 5 February 2006 that the policeman had been injured by a flowerpot thrown from the roof of the squat. If he had given evidence to that effect, the prosecution case would have fallen apart, but he changed his story to say that the policeman was hit by a stone. A forensic report which confirmed that the policeman had been hit by an object falling from above was submitted to trial but ignored by the judge. The group of three men had already served two years and therefore could be released, then on appeal to the
Supreme Court of Spain The Supreme Court ('', TS'') is the highest court in the Kingdom of Spain. Originally established pursuant to Title V of the Constitution of 1812 to replace —in all matters that affected justice— the System of Councils, and currently regulat ...
their sentences were increased so they went back to jail. Cisternas was sent to Cárcel Modelo in Madrid. Despite the two having been charged and convicted together, Alfredo Pestenas was pardoned and Patricia Heras was not. She received a three-year sentence and whilst on release in April 2011, she killed herself by jumping off a balcony.


''Ciutat Morta''

Soon after Heras had committed suicide in 2011, Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega met at the beginning of the
15M movement The anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement (Spanish: ''Movimiento 15-M''), and the Indignados Movement, was a series of protests, demonstrations, and occupations against austerity policies in Spain that began aro ...
at
Plaça de Catalunya Plaça de Catalunya (, meaning in English language, English "Catalonia Square"; sometimes referred to as Plaza de Cataluña, its Spanish name) is a large square in central Barcelona that is generally considered to be both its city centre and the p ...
and decided to make a short film commemorating her life. This project then became the film ''
Ciutat Morta ''Ciutat Morta'' (, "Dead City") is a 2013 Catalan documentary about the 4F case, directed by Xavier Artigas and Xapo Ortega. The film covers the repercussions of the events of February 4, 2006, when a Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona, Guàrdia Urb ...
''. It challenged the official narrative about the events of 4 February and suggested the people convicted were not guilty of any offences, but rather guilty of being "incívicos", namely people who were considered "uncivil" since they were assumed to be skateboarders, street drinkers, sex workers or squatters. The film accuses the police, the justice system and the doctors of permitting torture. It premiered at a squatted cinema and when it was eventually shown on Catalan television in 2015, it received over 500,000 views. After the directors mentioned the testimony of an anonymous witness who knew who the person who had thrown the projectile and could testify that it was not any of the people convicted, calls were made to re-open the case. A representative of the Colegio de Abogados de Barcelona (Barcelona Bar Association) said there were now enough reasons to do so. Mayor
Xavier Trias Xavier Trias i Vidal de Llobatera (; born in Barcelona on 5 August 1946) is a Spanish politician, member of the Catalan European Democratic Party and was Mayor of Barcelona from July 2011 to June 2015. Among other responsibilities to the Governm ...
affirmed his faith in the actions of the police and
Jordi Hereu Jordi Hereu i Boher (; born 14 June 1965 in Barcelona, Spain) is a politician, member of the PSC. He was the Mayor of Barcelona from 2006 to 2011. He is married, has two children and holds a MBA in business administration from the ESADE Business S ...
who at the time had been responsible for security said he had taken the right actions, but if there was new evidence it should be looked at. The city council asked the public prosecutor to watch the film to see if the case should be reopened, a motion supported by Cs, ERC, ICV and
Guanyem Barcelona Ganemos or Guanyem refers to a set of independent municipal initiatives in Spain seeking to create and improve mechanisms for more direct citizen participation in politics. The movement, like 15M, was initiated during the Spanish financial crisi ...
. The
Catalan Parliament The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...
then recommended that the convictions were reviewed. A demonstration was held on 4 February 2015 in which thousands of people marched through Barcelona to mourn the death of Heras and to denounce the 4F convictions.


Later convictions

Two of the police officers alleged to have beaten up the three Latin American men were Bakari Samyang and Victor Bayona. In October 2014, they were themselves convicted and imprisoned for assaulting and torturing a student from Trinidad and Tobago who was the son of a diplomat. In 2006, the two off-duty police officers had been challenged by the student because they were harassing a woman in a bar. They took him to a police station and tortured him, resulting in an official complaint. The two officers were imprisoned for two years and three months. Rodrigo Lanza was imprisoned for five years after a 2017 barfight in Zaragoza with a man who had been a member of the far-right party
Falange Española de las JONS The Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS; ), was a fascist political party founded in Spain in 1934 as merger of the Falange Española and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. FE de las JONS ...
since the 1980s. The man was struck and fell over, later dying of his injuries. In 2020, Lanza's sentence was increased to 20 years and two years later it was reduced to 18.5.


Legacy

The 4F case and ''Ciutat Morta'' generated a lengthy public debate, which broadened from the voicing of concerns regarding the innocence of those convicted into a discussion about the moral state of the city of Barcelona. As part of the
gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
of Barcelona, Mayor Joan Clos had introduced the Plan for the Promotion of Civic Virtues which penalised behaviours such as begging, skateboarding, public urination and prostitution. Framing these actions as a matter of public hygiene, almost 150 fines were issued every day. The 4F case challenged this discourse and an investigation by journalists from
La Directa ''Setmanari de Comunicació Directa'', usually known as ''La Directa'', is a biweekly magazine in Catalan language published in Barcelona and distributed in paper and digital format. The headquarters are in Sants, a neighbourhood of Barcelona, even ...
which accompanied the film ''Ciutat Morta'' noted that it was curious that a building owned by the city council of Barcelona, which was in a residential area and had been occupied purely for raves without a connection to the political squatting movement, had been tolerated for several years without being evicted. The journalists suggested it had been deliberately left alone in order to make the neighbours move away as part of a gentrification process. On the issue of police violence, a professor of social anthropology asserted there had been no change in police tactics since the end of the
Franco dictatorship Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...
.
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
released a report in 2007 which condemned both the impunity of police officers from prosecution and the bias of judges. Under a new administration led by
Ada Colau Ada Colau Ballano (; ; born 3 March 1974) is a Spanish activist and politician who is the current Mayor of Barcelona. On 13 June 2015 she was elected Mayor of Barcelona, the first woman to hold the office, as part of the citizen municipalist pla ...
, the city council of Barcelona pledged to make a new behavioural code for the Guàrdia Urbana which would encompass video surveillance in all custody areas and the right for arrestees to see a doctor unaccompanied by an officer. An investigation into police wrongdoing was stymied by the disappearance of all documents related to the case and as of 2017, no convictions had been overturned. The policeman struck by the projectile was awarded the Police Merit Cross in 2013. The book ''Ciutat Morta: Cronica del Caso del 4F'' (''Dead City: Chronicle of the 4F Case'') was released exactly ten years after the original incident. The 4F case returned to the attention of local media in 2020, when the city council refused to withdraw its prize of the for the directors of the film, following the increase in the sentence for Rodrigo Lanza's Zaragoza conviction.


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

* {{Authority control 2000s in Barcelona 2010s in Barcelona Squatting in Spain Anarchism in Spain