The Mossos d’Esquadra They are looking for a man who on Wednesday, January 25, attacked a neighbor of the Balmes street in Barcelona in the portal of his house. The suspect covered his face with a ski mask and he held a knife. The woman, however, noticed her presence, yelled and managed to get her to flee. The attack did not take place, but the episode has generated discomfort in this neighborhood community, which believes that a more energetic response has been lacking from the Catalan police to find the suspect.
The events occurred at 11:15 p.m. on that Wednesday, when the neighbor entered the building. In the camera recordings security of the block it can be seen that at that time the woman opens the door to the street and enters the interior of the community hall. Seconds later, and before the door closes, the suspect enters, hooded and holding the knifewhich is visible on his right hand.
The scene, recorded by cameras
In the images it can be seen that the woman, when she tries to open a second door that gives access to the concierge area, where the elevator and the stairs are located, suddenly turns around and discovers the attacker when he is about to reach it. “Gave a very loud scream and instinctively I kicked him,” the affected woman explains to this newspaper, who asks that her anonymity be maintained.
The panicked shriek caused the attacker to turn and walk away. The recording also shows that, after two or three minutes, some neighbors go down to the street to check that the man has left. But unexpectedly they see that the opposite has happened: the suspect, his face still hidden by a ski mask, is still in front of the building, on the opposite side of Balmes street.
dead end passage
The presence of the neighbors, some of whom also advanced towards him, caused the hooded man to retreat, taking the putxet street and then taking the putxet passage, an alley that has no exit. The neighbors, who knew it, called 112 to report what had happened and report that the suspect had entered a ‘mousetrap’. “they took between 20 and 25 minutes to arrive”, laments the neighbor who was about to be attacked by the man.
According to Mossos sources, between the notice the police received and the arrival of the first patrols at the scene 10 minutes passed. And in the information that 112 transmitted to the Catalan agents, there was no record that the suspect was in situation of being easily arrested instead, it was detailed that he had already left, a detail that reduced the degree of urgency.
Lost opportunity
When the patrols arrived at the Putxet passage, ten or twenty minutes late depending on the local or police version, the hooded man was no longer there. Some people residing in homes with windows that overlook the passage saw him for several minutes protected by the darkness of the place, some 20 or 30 meters from where the group of neighbors who had followed him from Balmes was. But when the policemen approached the place and scrutinized it, it was already gone. Most likely, he found an open window and fled through a building to another street.
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“We explained to the police that we had images of the attack and they replied that they would come to look for them the next day. But they still haven’t done it,” lamented the victim this week. Consulted the Mossos in this regard, a spokeswoman clarified that the agents went the next day to look for the images but not those of the Balmes building but those of the Putxet passage. The agents understood that the neighbors were referring to the passage cameras, which were not recording. After finding out that the cameras had not captured their escape, they left without going near the estate where the events occurred in Balmes, where the doorman was waiting for them to show them the images.
This Thursday, after the notice of this newspaper, the agents finally went to look for the images of the goal, where you can see the hooded man, with the knife and approaching the woman. The victim, for her part, will soon go to formalize a complaint against the aggressor, aware that she must present it, but regretting that the police reaction was so late that it allowed her to escape and that, in the opinion of the neighbors, there was a lack of interest in investigate the facts. The Mossos, officially, assure that they are investigating what happened.