You can ask just about anybody, no matter their political leaning, whether they feel corruption is rife amongst politicians and the majority will answer that it is, sadly.

But what about the different Spanish police bodies? Generally the answer would be negative – a few bad apples but nothing generalized. With this preamble we introduce the following…

A 39-year-old man and his 16-year-old son were arrested in Vélez Málaga for attempting to bribe the police and then attacking them. These two gentlemen are from China.

The incident occurred one morning around the middle of the month in a food shop along El Camino de Málaga. the Policia Local turned up to carry out an inspection after receiving a complete that the shop had been selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors. During the inspection they came across a box containing 30 packets of contraband cigarettes; ones that eluded import tax & duty.

According to the police report, they informed the proprietor that he was to be fined and his reaction was to offer them several banknotes (the total amount wasn’t mentioned in the report) and asked them not to report their discovery.

When the police rejected the ‘offer,’ the man then reached for an iron bar and struck one of them on the shoulder and the other policeman on the wrist with a bottle – continues the police report. Not only that, he attempted to snatch a third policeman’s regulation pistol – quite a kung-fu moment. The son, not to be left out, leapt on one of the policemen causing “multiple lesions.”

Editorial note: Whereas bribing policemen might or might not be the norm in China, attacking them with iron bars is probably not recommended around Pekin way… Even so, fortunately this took place in Vélez Málaga and not the USA, where sneezing in a violent manner would have been met with a barrage of keenly triggered shots.

(News: Velez Malaga, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)