A sign of regional power
The Mossos d’Esquadra (its full, official name is the Policia de la Generalitat de Catalunya) was created in the early 1980s, as part of an arrangement to grant Catalonia greater regional autonomy. Its powers were broadened in the mid-1990s to take on almost all major policing duties in Catalonia except for border and passport controls. Along with the Basque Country, it is the only region to have its own force with such powers.
“Having the Mossos was extremely important for Catalonia, it was an opportunity to have our own modern police,” Francesc-Marc Álvaro, a member of parliament for the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left (ERC), said. He said the force was a crucial element of the region’s distinct identity, for both nationalists and unionists.
That status was underlined in August 2017, when terrorists killed 16 people in Barcelona and the town of Cambrils, thrusting the Mossos into the spotlight. In the days after, officers shot dead six terrorists, and it became a common sight for people to break into applause when the police passed by. Some Catalans put flowers on patrol cars as a mark of gratitude.
The most senior officer at the time, Josep Lluís Trapero, became a folk hero to many Catalans, who admired his self-assured manner and insistence on speaking in Catalan in press conferences. He was so popular that his face started appearing on T-shirts.
Weeks after the terrorist attacks, Trapero and his force faced a very different kind of test when the Catalan government — led at the time by Puigdemont — organized a controversial independence referendum.
Officers from across Spain were deployed to quell the rebellion, often through force. The Mossos, however, took a relatively hands-off approach, leading to many nationalists seeing them as the potential foot soldiers of an independent state. This inevitably drew the ire of Madrid, with accusations that the Mossos was conniving with the independence movement (a view compounded by an old video showing Trapero singing at a party with Puigdemont and other top nationalist figures).