| Armed and Traffic Police Corps Cuerpo de Policía Armada y de Tráfico | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Common name | Policía Armada |
| Abbreviation | FPA |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 3 August 1939 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | 4 December 1978 |
| Superseding agency | Cuerpo Nacional de Policía |
| Employees | 20,000 (1968est.) |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| National agency | Francoist Spain |
| Operations jurisdiction | Francoist Spain |
| Governing body | Ministry of Governance |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Overseen by | Directorate General of Security [es] |
| Headquarters | Madrid |
| Parent agency | Spanish Armed Forces |
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TheArmed Police (Spanish:Policía Armada), conventional long namesCuerpo de Policía Armada y de Tráfico,'Armed and Traffic Police Corps') andFuerzas de Policía Armada,'Armed Police Forces'), —popularly known aslos grises,'the grey ones') owing to the color of their uniforms— was an armedurban police force ofSpain established by theFrancoist regime in 1939 to enforce therepression of all opposition to the regime. Its mission was "total and permanent vigilance, as well as repression when deemed necessary."[1]
The first commander of thePolicía Armada was GeneralAntonio Sagardía Ramos. In its first years of operation the corps was inadequately equipped in armament and vehicles but this situation would be steadily straightened out.[2]: 74
Following the overthrow of theSecond Spanish Republic in April 1939, the Francoist Spain initially relied on theArmy in order to handle public order issues.[2]: 58 By means of two sets of laws issued on 3 August 1939 and 8 March 1941 the Spanish State reorganized the police forces of Spain and established the Armed Police as agendarmerie style national armed police that could be used to suppress disturbance of the public order and political organization in urban areas.[2]: 62 Armed and trained for this purpose, it was intended to provide a more effective force for internal security duties in the large cities of Spain than theGuardia Civil that operated mainly in rural areas.[2]: 58
At the time of theSpanish coup of July 1936 that marked the onset of theSpanish Civil War most of the members of the preceding equivalent corps, theGuardia de Asalto had stayed loyal to theRepublican government and many of their units fought valiantly in the battlefronts against theNationalists.[3] This display of loyalty towards the Spanish Republic brought about the disbandment of the corps byGeneral Franco at the end of the Civil War. The members of theGuardia de Asalto who had survived the war and the ensuingFrancoist purges were made part of the Policía Armada, the corps that replaced it.[4]
ThePolicía Armada was placed under the Directorate-General of Security(Dirección General de Seguridad) of the SpanishMinistry of the Interior(Ministerio de la Gobernación) and operated in most large population centers in Spain. Towards the last phase of the Francoist State it had earned a wide reputation as a ferocious corps, especially in the largest cities such asMadrid,Barcelona,Bilbao andValencia, as well as the industrial areas of Spain such as parts ofAsturias and theBasque country, where its well-equipped anti-riot units were ruthless and effective in quellingdemonstrations by university students and workers that were often very large.
In the months after the death of thecaudillo the Armed Police actively cracked down on protests and political rallies, continuing the infamousriot control operations of the Francoist State. Viewed as unpopular and too closely identified with Franco's Spain, thePolicía Armada was slightly reorganized in the first years of theSpanish transition to democracy, when brown uniforms replaced the former grey ones, among other cosmetic changes.[5] The effort, however, revealed itself hopeless for the brutal and harsh image of the corps could not be improved and in 1979 the Armed Police was replaced by theCuerpo Nacional de Policía (National Police Corps), later civilianized in a 1986 merger with theCuerpo Superior de Policía (Superior Police Corps).[6]
As its other function was traffic and road safety, its duties in all national highways outside the metropolitan areas ended in June 1959, when the Civil Guard took over.
ThePolicía Armada, together with the Guardia Civil, became notorious during the decades of Francoism for its ruthless methods and for widespreadhuman rights abuses against its victims. Indiscriminate beatings of detainees andtorture, with or withoutinterrogation, were commonplace in the manypolice stations(Comisarías) as well as in the headquarters of the Armed Police. Interrogations usually included a member of theBrigada Político-Social, the Francoist political repression wing.[7] The brutal image of the Spanish police would be so pervasive that it has continued to haunt the National Police Corps that replaced thePolicía Armada following the Spanish Transition to this day.[8]
The ranks and insignia of thePolicía Armada displayed its military character and structure.[2]: 63 When the National Police Corps replaced it in 1979, it would take 7 years before the rank system was replaced.
.svg) Spain (1939–1977) |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| General de División (Commissioner) | General de Brigada (Assistant Commissioner) | Coronel (Chief Superintendent) | Teniente Coronel (Superintendent) | Comandante | Capitán | Teniente | Alférez (Station Inspector) |
Spain (1939–1977) |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Subteniente (Sub-inspector) | Brigada (Head Constable) | Sargento Primero (Staff Sergeant) | Sargento (Sergeant) | Cabo Primero (Corporal) | Cabo (Lance Corporal) | Policía de Primera (Senior Constable) | Policía (Policeman, Constable) |
The Armed Police used different types of vehicles until its disbandment in 1978. Their registration plates had the letters FPA(Fuerzas de Policía Armada) in black over white.[9]
The Mobile Units (Banderas Móviles) used the following vehicles:
The General Reserve Companies (Compañías de Reserva General) used the following:
The Garrison Units (Banderas de Guarnición) were equipped with:
TheCavalry Platoons (Caballería) usedAvia 2500 trucks that could carry four horses each for theiranti-riot operations, troops were only armed with batons and pistons while sporting lances for ceremonial parades.
Media related toPolicía Armada at Wikimedia Commons