The Ribadavia Local Police celebrated its 150th birthday today, making it the oldest police force in Galicia and one of the top ten in Spain, explained the mayor, Marcos Blanco, in a simple ceremony held at its headquarters, where he discovered a commemorative plaque.
Blanco, who spoke on behalf of the corporation, reminded the political representatives and police officers who attended the event that this institution was created by decision of the full City Council on December 28, 1856.
"The first agents were three who looked after the security of the neighbors during the day and at night they performed security duties and watched over the properties, at a time of frequent robberies that added to the frightful misery suffered by all the neighbors due to the loss of wine harvest due to oidium plague, "commented the mayor.
The plague of the vineyard, according to Blanco, was added in 1856 the appearance of cholera in the town and "the obligation imposed by the central government of an extraordinary tax, which caused embargoes and the sale of the property of the residents of Ribadavia, thus leading them to misery and hunger ".
The first three agents of 1856 were armed and charged 3,300 reais a year and 600 more for equipment and weapons, according to researcher Luis Gulín, author of a doctoral thesis on the Ribeiro region developed at the Faculty of History on the Ourense campus.
The mayor also stressed that the research carried out by Gulín in the Provincial Historical Archive of Ourense and in the Ethnological Museum of Ribadavia is included in a motion that this afternoon will be debated by the City Council to agree on public recognition of the work of the Local Police of the town because considered that "it contributed to improve the security in her".
For his part, the current head of the police force José Luis Vázquez Fernández, explained that in Galicia, the next body of this type by seniority in Galicia is that of Vigo, now 125 years ago, although institutions have been created in the rest of Spain. similar before in Madrid, Barcelona, ??Bilbao, Albacete and Torrevieja.
Vázquez Fernández indicated that the current staff has eight agents and that it was 60 years ago "when it had the largest number of members" since it had "six local police officers and six watchmen with separate functions."
"For many years the work was all on the street and there was no headquarters until 1950", said Vázquez Fernández and specified that "since then he occupied several different premises until in 2003 he settled in the current one,
It also showed the only photograph of an agent that they have at the headquarters where a neighbor of Sampaio (Ribadavia) known as "Pucho" appears at the time when the previous police chief, Ricardo Alvarez, makes him get up from the bank in which he slept.
"This resident of Sampaio, now deceased, would come to Ribadavia every Sunday 30 years ago to the cinema and upon reaching the center of the town, he would take a handkerchief from his pocket and start directing traffic as if he were a policeman," Vázquez said Fernandez.
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