The Spanish Association of Civil Guards (AEGC) has celebrated that the General Directorate has agreed with its complaint about expired bulletproof vests and has ordered their withdrawal, hoping that "it will be the definitive step to finally provide all guards with a personal and non-transferable vest."
In a statement, the AEGC recalls that, on December 12, it once again denounced "the shortage of bulletproof vests in the Civil Guard, which forces agents to continue sharing them in the midst of a pandemic in which hygiene measures are being demanded to be extreme."
Therefore, they demanded that "all civil guards be provided with a personal bulletproof vest, as almost all members of the National Police Corps already have, who have been leaving the academy for years with this important self-protection material as a personal endowment."
In addition, the association also denounced that "the problem of lack of vests was going to worsen in the coming months, since there was an important batch close to expiring after completing its 10 years of use." To solve the problem, "the General Directorate had not taken the measure of replacing them but had decided to carry out a safety test on two of these pieces per Command and thereby ensure their effectiveness," according to AEGC's complaint. A measure that, in their opinion, "does not guarantee the safety of civil guards, since only a few were going to be checked and the results could not be extrapolated to the entire expired batch."
More "personal and non-transferable" protection material
This Monday, December 28, AEGC states that it has learned that "the colleagues who had been assigned one of these RABINTEX bulletproof vests had to deliver them to the Main Staff of the Material Department" because "from this date on, the vest will no longer be used" "as it has expired."
AEGC is pleased that "at least this time the General Directorate has chosen to rectify in order to prioritize the safety of civil guards and not allow expired material to continue being used, a common practice until now."
From the association, they hope that "this measure will be the definitive step to finally provide all guards with a personal and non-transferable vest", because they doubt that "the Ministry of Health agrees that a vest is shared between three agents in the middle of the pandemic."
"In addition to not having bulletproof vests, we have not been provided with the extendable batons that we should have as an individual endowment, nor do all guards have one, nor do they all have the required training for their use," AEGC denounces, which points out that it still does not understand "how at this point there are local police who already have Taser guns as an endowment and civil guards, with many more powers and attributions in matters of citizen security, do not have access to them."
"We insist, it is good news that the Directorate has listened to us and has opted for the withdrawal of expired vests, but the measure will not be perfect until we are all individually provided with this material," concludes the AEGC.
