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Police officers in the Region of Murcia are being attacked at twice the rate they were ten years ago. According to Ministry of the Interior data, assaults on officers in the region rose from 284 in 2015 to 582 in 2025. Nationally, attacks on security forces increased by 65.7% between 2018 and 2025, reaching 16,554 incidents. The unions representing those officers say the problem is getting worse and that the system is not protecting the people who protect everyone else.

 

The recent incidents in the region make the statistics feel very real. Last Sunday, an off-duty local police sub-inspector was injured and hospitalised after stepping in to break up a fight on a Cartagena beach. Days earlier in San Javier, an individual threw stones at three officers and damaged a patrol car. The same town saw another suspect attack officers with kicks and headbutts when they came to arrest him for stabbing someone. "He was out of it," the injured officers said afterwards.

 

Adrián Rodríguez, general secretary of the Unified Police Union in Murcia, is blunt about how his colleagues feel. "We can't be asked to protect citizens if we're left to fend for ourselves on the streets. The feeling we have every day on the streets is one of absolute lack of protection." He points to outdated equipment, lenient sentencing and what he describes as institutional abandonment. "As soon as there is a complicated situation where we are forced to use legitimate force, instead of supporting us, the first reaction is to target us, question our intervention, and blame us."

 

One case in particular illustrates the human cost. In January, officer Gabriel García was attacked by a delivery driver who struck him in the face with a full-face helmet. Months later, he suffers from double vision, dizziness and constant headaches, and has a titanium plate in his eye. Jupol, the union representing Policía Nacional officers, described it plainly: "This is the real price a national police officer in Murcia pays for enforcing the law: his health, his career and, in many cases, his future."

 

The shortage of tasers is a recurring grievance. Only six operational taser guns are available to Guardia Civil officers across the entire region, covering 45 barracks. The Unified Association of Civil Guards is demanding at least two per barracks. Jupol argues that if officers in the Barrio del Carmen had been equipped with tasers, two serious assaults on colleagues there would likely not have happened.

 

The unions are united on what needs to change: tougher sentences for assaulting officers, proper equipment, more staff and institutional support that is visible and consistent.

 

Image: Policía Nacional/X