Despite the absence of Local Police officers due to the large number of medical leaves and the refusal to perform extraordinary services due to the conflict with the City Council over the salary increase, the Carnivals have taken place, according to the Security Councilor, Juan Antonio Santana, within the "normality" in security matters and "without serious incidents".
For his part, José Antonio García Camacho, commissioner of the National Police force, who has had to reinforce his presence during this week, has highlighted the number of minor crimes, such as robberies and thefts, but assures that they have been "quiet festivities".
Regarding the assessment, Juan Antonio Santana has stated that he does not yet have the data to make a comparison with respect to other years, but maintains that the surveillance service has been covered with the reinforcement of other State security forces. And finally, the collaboration of the Local Police from the rest of the municipalities was not necessary as planned, since the National Police provided, in addition to the ordinary patrol, nine more agents from the Provincial Prevention Group (UPR) in events such as the Murgas Final, where only one Local Police officer was on duty, according to the Security Councilor.
However, this Wednesday, up to 20 agents participated in the Burial of the Sardine due to the gradual reincorporation of personnel who were on leave, which amounted to more than half of the staff. Juan Antonio Santana maintains that the "majority of agents have been discharged" and reaffirms that he "cannot recognize these medical leaves as a measure of pressure", because it would be talking about "a fraud". Even so, the City Council "has opened a reserved information as a follow-up to what is happening".
On the other hand, the union representative of the Local Police, Narciso Pérez, accuses the City Council of wanting to hide the lack of personnel, since, "although fortunately there were no misfortunes to regret, the absence of surveillance was palpable", especially in the rest of the city of Arrecife, where "presumably" there were no police officers.
Regarding the negotiations, while the councilor assures that telephone contact is maintained with the unions, Narciso Pérez considers the communication "paralyzed" because the mayor of the capital, María Isabel Déniz, insists on postponing the meetings until after the elections.
For this reason, the Local Police Assembly will meet again next Monday to determine new measures of pressure such as, for example, "becoming more professional, as the mayor asks us". And it is that according to Narciso Pérez, they could "begin to bring before the Courts" the complaints that the agents file "repeatedly" in the City Council and that he assures that they do not follow their administrative procedure, such as "the breaches of schedules" and "the works without a license".