Police officers in court for forcibly entering party house during Covid lockdown

The Prosecutor’s Office is requesting the acquittal pf six police officers who will appear in court in Madrin today, after they are accused of forcibly entering an apartment in Madrid, where a party was being held, in March 2021, when there were restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

For three weeks, six agents will sit in the dock of the Madrid Provincial Court, accused of the crime of breaking and entering, although the Prosecutor’s Office requests that they be exempt from criminal responsibility.

The prosecutor considers that the actions of the head of the police intervention were reckless but, since the Penal Code does not “expressly” include the “reckless” modality of the crime of breaking and entering, he defends the acquittal.

Regarding the other five agents, he believes that, by opening the door of the apartment with a battering ram and entering by force, they committed the crime of trespassing but the complete exonerating circumstance of acting in the performance of a duty exists.

This procedure is the best-known “kick in the door” case, since the people who were on the floor where the party was taking place recorded the police intervention, which occurred on March 21, 2021.

At that time, the restrictions established after the declaration of the state of alarm to contain the Covid pandemic were still in force, including the prohibition of meetings of non-cohabiting people in private places, the Prosecutor’s Office reports in its provisional conclusions.

The six police officers appeared at the building and the head of the operation unsuccessfully asked the people who were in the apartment to identify themselves for about forty-five minutes.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office document, given the refusal of those attending the party, the head of the operation understood that “they were committing a flagrant crime of disobedience to authority” and that this entitled him to access the property, despite the fact that a of the people told him that judicial authorisation was necessary.

He ordered the door to be opened, an order that was not questioned – says the Prosecutor’s Office – by his subordinates, who finally managed to enter by using a battering ram, and arrested the people who were inside the house, except for those who said that they did want to open the door.

Another similar police action, also in Madrid, in March 2021, was archived last July after the Prosecutor’s Office requested it, which was the only accusation.

In that trial of the “kick in the door” of Lagasca, the State Attorney’s Office requested the acquittal of the four agents it represents considering that they did not commit any crime, but in the event that the court considers that they did, it requests that the full defence of compliance with duty is applied to them, as advocated by the Prosecutor’s Office.

This is the same position defended by the sub-inspector in charge of said operation and another of the agents who participated.

For his part, the tenant of the apartment, requested a sentence of four years in prison for the crime of breaking and entering and, in addition, requested almost 7,000 euro for the damage caused to the home as the moral damages caused by the action.

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