Marin Egeu Sabau, a 45-year-old Romanian resident of Alcover, near the city of Tarragona, in Catalonia, decided to complicate his life today at 11am. At that time, the man entered the Tarragona offices of the security firm for which he worked until recently and opened fire on three people: the manager of the Securitas branch in the southern Catalonia city, and two of the company's employees. One was critically injured and the other two were seriously injured.
After the shooting, he fled in his car, a grey Citroën XSara. Although the Mossos d'Esquadra police activated its so-called "Operation Cage" to block off the city of Tarragona, the gunman was able to slip through the perimeter and headed south-west to the nearby city of Reus and then on towards Falset.
Just out of Reus, at the Maspujols roundabout, he came across a police checkpoint, and opened fire on an officer from the Investigation Unit of the Reus police, who, despite a bullet wound which seriously injured him, is now in a stable condition and out of danger.
On the right, the head of the Mossos in Tarragona, commissioner Josep Maria Estela / ACN
Holed up for two hours in a farmhouse
The man then took cover in a farmhouse near the Maspujols streambed, and close to the village Maspujols, until two hours later members of the Catalan police force's GEI special intervention team moved in on his hiding place and were able to neutralize him.
Aerial view of the house where the gunman holed up, this afternoon / ACN
At first, the GEI team members were not spotted by the man, but when he eventually saw them, he opened fire. None of the officers of this special Mossos group were injured but the gunman fell to the ground, seriously injured from gunshot wounds. The man was immediately treated by paramedics from a special SEM unit and was taken in critical condition to Bellvitge Hospital near Barcelona.
The successful police action, which received the congratulations of the Mossos chief commissioner for Tarragona, Josep Maria Estela, who led the operation on the ground, brought to an end a nightmare that had begun on Tuesday morning and caused locals to fear for their lives in the areas of Riudoms, Maspujols and Les Borges del Camp, where it was believed that the man was hiding.
Heavily armed and dangerous
At the time of the first incidents, the Mossos d'Esquadra didn't know what kind of person they were facing, but they were quickly able to connect the dots and learn that the man who had opened fire in Tarragona was an ex-employee of the security company. By sharing information with Spanish security forces, the Mossos d'Esquadra were able to quickly get a clear profile of the man they were pursuing.
The Tarragona gunman, armed, in a photo taken by himself / ElCaso.cat
According to commissioner Estela, the man was in possession of a large arsenal, and all the information available pointed to the fact that he was an expert shooter and had no intention to surrender, thus making him very dangerous. His intention was to kill. The Mossos knew this, and all precautions had to be taken. Although the Mossos' experts in negotiation - part of the force's kidnapping and extortion unit - attempted this approach, as is standard before an armed police intervention, it was impossible.
It was finally decided that the GEI team would carry out the assault. With the area secured, it was confirmed that the man had a large arsenal of weapons with him, all real and ready to be used. In fact, he fired against the GEI agents who stormed the farmhouse where he was holed up.
Motive under investigation
The Mossos d'Esquadra have an investigation open to clarify the facts and find out what may have motivated these terrible events. Commissioner Estela assured that the investigation is following a clear line, but did not want to advance it, at least until informing the Tarragona judge who will lead the judicial investigation into what happened.
Image of the email sent to Securitas, yesterday / ElCaso.cat
As ElCaso.cat has reported, yesterday Marin Egeu Sabau sent an e-mail to several people from the Tarragona company to wish them "happy holidays, bastards" accusing the compnay of being "thieves" and "racists", a fact that suggests that all this may be motivated by the dismissal from his job that this security guard, of Romanian nationality and 45 years old, received from Securitas a few days ago.