First, Spanish news agency EFE publishes allegations that the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan police, spied on the regional leader of the PP party, Xavier García Albiol, and the Spanish government's delegate to Catalonia, Enric Millo. Second, the news spreads quickly through media close to Mariano Rajoy's PP government with the ensuing political scandal. Third, Albiol, quick off the mark, sees the case as most typical of the Gestapo and totalitarian regimes. Nazism is always the frame for the independence movement for the wider public. Fourth, the Mossos issue an official denial through the Catalan Interior ministry under central government intervention after the application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. Then, fifth and, for the moment, finally, the Spanish Interior ministry says that it isn't sure about anything and that the National Police's report is not yet finished.
Eight hours between the first and last story, an eternity in a world in which the immediacy of information linked to the Catalan election campaign ends up spreading news at an enormous speed and unfounded rumours at supersonic speed. Part of the damage is already done to the Catalan police. Since the August terrorist attack, which they solved with indisputable expertise and enormous professionalism, it seems that the Mossos has become the subject of a sort of witch hunt from Madrid against its leaders, its operations and its efficiency. This isn't helped by its dependence on the Spanish Interior ministry, which, after the suppression of autonomy, has ended up taking control of the force and the relieving its highest-ranking officer, Major Trapero, investigated (previously charged) by the National Audience court over the 1st October Catalan referendum and now assigned to administrative duties.
Although we already know from previous election campaigns that everything ends up passing as a scandalous headline even though the surrounding pyrotechnics present it as the absolute truth, someone should think of the need to leave the Catalan police outside of the political fight. I already know that won't happen, because part of the shameful campaign underway consists precisely of discrediting it to the maximum extent possible so it doesn't form part of the elite of the European police forces. That image of the Mossos praised around the world for their resolution of the attacks on Barcelona's Rambla and in Cambrils and what it meant in terms of international recognition was very difficult for them to digest. Above all, when they've always done everything possible for it to be on a rung below the state's security forces. That old idea from the 80s that the Catalans had a frivolous police force and little more, because the Catalans didn't know anything about such matters, nor do they like them.
What's certain is that, more than 30 years later, maybe the police is still disliked by Catalans. But to know so is something else.