Why Trapote can say that he was not prosecuted even though he killed a worker in Badalona in 1974

Marchena: "Have you ever been prosecuted in the past?"

Trapote: "Never"

 

With this preliminary question that Judge Marchena asks all witnesses, the declaration of the former head of the Policia Nacional in Catalonia during October 1 in the trial of the Catalan independence trial began.
 

 

It is indeed correct: Sebastián Trapote, now retired, has never been prosecuted or tried during his successful career in the police force, full of promotions and decorations. But his file has a black mark: on June 8, 1974 he killed a worker in Badalona with a shot in the back at point-blank range.

It was at the end of the Franco regime, and Trapote was a 20-year-old young man from a town in Valladolid who had received the badge that identified him as a police officer only a month and five days ago.

The victim of his happy trigger, or of a "shot fired reflexively", as the same Trapote recognized, was a mechanic from Badalona, ​​José Luis Herreros, 29, married and father of 7 children.

 

Shot in the back

On the night of June 7, 1974, two men knocked on the door of the house of Herreros asking for his services as a mechanic. His wife, Pilar Torres, told them that he had not arrived yet.

But José Luis never came back. In the morning, two police officers called to the house of the couple again and explained to their wife that her husband had died that night in a shooting.

That night, José Luis Herreros was trying to escape from the policemen who had gone to look for him at his home, one of whom would later be recognized at the police station by his young widow as Sebastián Trapote.
 

The autopsy was conclusive

The bullet entered his back, burst his heart and came out through his chest. The corpse had another previous bullet impact, fired on the left foot.

The first shot in the foot prevented him from escaping. The policemen caught him and handcuffed him, and, once immobilized and facing the wall, the young sub-inspector Trapote shot him in the back with the fatal shot.

The police tried to justify the policeman's behavior by claiming that Herreros was armed with a knife and had tried to attack them. They also tried to involve the worker in crime matters.

The pardon arrives

After the death of her husband, Pilar Torres tried twice to file a complaint in the courts of Badalona, ​​but it was not admitted on either occasion.

The woman continued her legal quest for justice until the lawyer Marc Viader found a court in Barcelona that was keen on opening criminal proceedings against Trapote. But, when the process was underway, the pardons arrived both in November 1975, just after Franco's death, and in March 1977.

 

Marc Viader in a fragment of the program "Sense Ficció"

With the pardon, the case ended in dismissal, and Sebastián Trapote preserved a clean file and was not processed. Marc Viader could not prevent the criminal case from ending up right there:

"Had there not been generic pardons for everyone, it would have been possible that I could have exercised a private accusation in a criminal trial, but it was definitely not possible, because these pardons closed the criminal path."

The case in the Supreme Court

Once the criminal path was closed, Viader resorted to civil proceedings, aiming to get compensation for the widow. After two first sentences that dismissed his claim, the case reached the Supreme Court.

Finally, in 1983, almost 10 years after the events, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pilar Torres, granting her a compensation of 7 million pesetas.

In any case, the ruling of the Supreme Court, in addition, includes all those elements proved on the case and that could not be used in a criminal proceeding thanks to the pardon. Thus, the text states:

"Sebastián Trapote Gutiérrez expressly acknowledged in a judicial statement that he directed a shot to the back at a hand's distance from the deceased, José Luis Herreros, while he was facing the wall and another official was handcuffing him."

The sentence also dismantles the police version that the victim had threatened them with a knife:

"Disproportionate reaction to shoot, before the impossible aggression of the deceased with a knife, since if he had tried to attack, the bullet would have entered either by the side of the body or by the chest, but not by the back".

The resolution of the Supreme Court of 1983 also includes a textual quote from Trapote in his statement admitting that:

"He reflexively shot him in the back."

 

 

While that sentence, partly compensatory, was not issued, Pilar Torres did not receive any kind of pension or help. She was evicted and had to leave two of her children in an institution due to lack of resources to attend them.

Trapote, on the other hand, had his way clear to forge a career.