The Torrox Town Hall has lodged a complaint against one of its own Local Police officers for allegedly threatening to arrest the Mayor.

Actually, according to the denucia, the policeman reportedly threatened to “slap handcuffs on him and parade him around the town.” Not content, the accusation goes, he also threatened to arrest the Local Police Chief, for good measure, it seems.

The Town Hall did not skimp on their terminology, accusing the said policeman of: offense against public authority, threats, coercion, falsehood, corruption and influence peddling.

To be on the safe side, they also claim that two other policemen who, together with the accused, signed a false report accusing the Mayor of slander and libel against public functionaries in the course of their duty.

Well, not much cordial bonhomie there and little chance of a flutter of Christmas cards in each others post boxes… but what has led to this tiff?

Apparently, during a Plenary Meeting of the Town Council on the 16th of July, dedicated almost exclusively to the ‘state of the municipal police,’ highlighting “prolonged and repetitive” bajas médicas (off sick) and cases of friction between members of this police body.

The Mayor just happened to mention a report by the Chief of Police in which he put into question the veracity of an accident report leading to two policemen reporting sick. The Chief said that disciplinary proceedings would be put into motion against them. At no point, it appears, were the names of the two policemen mentioned at the plenary meeting.

Then came the 2nd of August and our blue and blustery hero, marched into the police station whilst off duty, appointing himself instructor y secretario (the person submitting a report and the person filing it) reporting the Mayor for slander and libel, bless him.

This “false report,” in the opinion of the Mayor, was later handed over to the Guardia Civil without being signed out of the municipal police registry.

Then it gets more complicated ending up with the threats of marching the Mayor around town in handcuffs.

The full and exact wording of the policeman’s threats, according to the Town Hall, was, “These sons of bitches are going to throw the book at me for doing my job, they are going to shit out; I’ve got to arrest that mayor, slap the cuffs on him and march him around town so that they can see he has been arrested. The Chief had better watch it, too, because I’m going to arrest him as well – I’ll find something to nail him.”

Well, there you have it, the Torrox version of the Showdown at the OK Corral…

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