The workers union for the Policía Local de Granada in Motril (SIPLG) and the local union of police officers & firefighters in Spain are taking the Mayor of Motril to court.

They accuse the Mayor Luisa García Chamorro, of Malpractice, Malfeasance and Misconduct in Public Office because of her actions during the policing (or lack of) of Semana Santa.

The Policía Local went on strike during Easter yet the Mayor went ahead with the Semana Santa procession despite a lack officers on duty. She used civilian volunteers, whom the lawyer for the police union, Patricia Martín Vivaldi, points out were not qualified for such duty and thus put at risk the safety of the general public.

During the strike the Mayor used a municipal decree to close down streets to wheeled traffic and used councillors from her party to control access to them.

The Mayor had also publicly accused members of the striking police and fire service of defacing her posters with homophobic graffiti. She also denounced 56 police officers for neglect of duty for allegedly “a manifestly illegal collective abandonment of their public service.”

Opposition leader for the PSOE, Francisco Sánchez-Cantalejo, said that this new lawsuit against the Mayor by the Sindicato Independiente de Policía Local de Granada “is a new scandal that stains Motril’s image,” for which they demand that she resigns.

Editorial comment: there’s an old joke that says that politicians think that, “Dimite” (Resign) is just a Russian name.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)