Barcelona will equip the Local Police officers with electric pistols

BarcelonaOne year after the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, closed one of his most difficult weeks with a defeat in the plenary that left the agents of the Guardia Urbana without electric stun guns, the City Council is heading to overturn that decision. The commission for presidency, security, and internal affairs has initially approved, with the votes in favor of the PSC, Junts, and the PP, the contrary vote of Barcelona en Comú and ERC, and the abstention of Vox, the regulation that governs the provision and use of stun guns for the local police of the Catalan capital.

Junts, therefore, has changed its mind and has supported a regulation identical to the one it rejected a year ago. The leader of Junts in the council and now candidate for the 2027 elections, Jordi Martí Galbis, has defended his vote by saying that he has "observed" that, unlike what happened in June 2025, this time the municipal government has "dialogued with the police unions".

The regulation establishes the legal and operational framework for the use of this police tool – which the council calls energy-conducting devices (ECD) – sets the training requirements for officers, and incorporates specific control, evaluation, and accountability mechanisms. From now on, the public exhibition period opens, and it will be brought for final approval to the city's municipal plenary.

The City Council has explained that these devices are incorporated as an intermediate tool between the expandable baton and a firearm, with the aim of having an additional resource to face situations of high complexity and serious risk to the physical integrity of people. The regulation recalls that this tool is part of the equipment of numerous police forces throughout the State, including the Mossos d'Esquadra, the National Police, and the Guardia Civil.

The regulations provide that these Taser guns can only be used in situations where there is a serious risk to the life or physical integrity of agents, third parties, or the person involved. Their use is restricted to actions such as violent assaults, threats with weapons or dangerous objects, suicide attempts – attempts to take one's own life – or other situations of extreme necessity where it is necessary to avoid imminent harm. It is established that before using them, agents must exhaust all avenues of dialogue, negotiation, and mediation, and clearly warn the affected person of the possibility of using the device if they do not change their behavior.

Usage limitations

The regulation explicitly prohibits the use of electric stun guns on immobilized or handcuffed individuals in police custody within police facilities, and also in cases of passive permanent resistance. Furthermore, as a general rule, they cannot be used on pregnant women, minors under 14 years of age, elderly individuals, or those who are particularly vulnerable due to health reasons, except in exceptional situations where it is necessary to prevent greater harm or a serious and immediate risk. The text specifies that discharges must be limited to the minimum necessary to neutralize the existing threat and sets a maximum duration of five seconds for each activation of the device.

From Barcelona en Comú and Esquerra, Marc Serra and Jordi Coronas have requested that the regulation limit the number of discharges to fewer than five, and have criticized that it allows the use of Tasers on "14-year-old children." The third deputy mayor for Security, Albert Batlle, has responded to these criticisms by defending that the regulation "guarantees demanding training, clear rules of use, and rigorous control of each intervention, ensuring the proper use of the devices."

In a statement, Amnesty International has warned that the regulation governing the use of Taser guns by the Guardia Urbana entails "human rights concerns" because the use of Tasers "is not limited to last resort situations" that represent an "threat to the life or physical integrity of agents or third parties."