Josu Erkoreka’s latest statements on the Ertzaintza attacks on the Carnivals of Tolosa (Gipuzkoa) have raised dust. On the night of Zaldunita, the Ertzaintza carried the crowd celebrating the Carnivals and injured three young people using foam shells. One of them, a 16-year-old villains, was injured in the eye by the police. The last thing the Basque Government Security Minister has said to justify the Ertzaintza aggression is that the young man who had been injured in the eye had participated in the alleged "incidents" that occurred on the street that night.

"The main consequence is that the injured person was not there by chance, that he was not walking, [...] that there were no incidents and they left. It was within the conflicts," Erkoreka said. On the other hand, the counselor has repeatedly stated that the Ertzaintza did not shoot directly at the young villabonés: a foam shell apparently hit the other in the arm and "bounced".

Detail of the projectiles Foam: Catalonia

However, the explanations of the police themselves in many places deny the version of Erkoreka and the police sources. The explanations given regarding the measures adopted in Catalonia are significant. Since April 2014, Catalan mosses have been banned from using rubber balls. The measure was taken by the Catalan parliament after losing its eye in 2012 by Barcelonesa Esther Quintana, after the police beat him with a rubber ball. This ban was not imposed on the Spanish police and the Civil Guard, but on the autonomous police force. So the mosses started using the foam projectiles.

According to an article published by the Government of Spain in 2019, the police itself explained that foam projectiles are then "more accurate" and do not "bounce": "That is why they are not dangerous for citizens". However, the Catalan regional police acquired the foam shells much earlier: it bought them in 2011, on the occasion of a Copa del Rey final.

Catalan facts and measurements revealed that foam projectiles have a diameter of 40 millimeters and are made of viscoelastic material. The accuracy of these projectiles stood out as a peculiarity. Euskaltel collected this in 2021, for example: "Being a precision projectile, the injuries it causes are the result of a direct impact and not of an uncontrolled bounce".

Among many others, in February 2021, a person lost an eye for a projectile foam: the mossos attacked in Barcelona in protests against the imprisonment of Pablo Hasel. At that time, the lawyer warned: "It is clear that the foam has been projectile. It's a kind of projectile that impacts where it's pointed."

Equally deadly

Iñigo Cabacas was killed by the Ertzaintza in 2012, in Bilbao (Bizkaia), by a punch. In January 2014, the use of shotguns for throwing balls in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country was limited, which theoretically can only be used by the specialized units of the Mobile Brigade and "in exceptional situations". The Ertzaintza can therefore continue to use rubber balls: on the same Sunday, the agents faced protesters who were remembering the workers killed in the Vitoria (Álava) massacre and used rubber balls and foam shells against them.

Following the assassination of Cabacas, the Basque Government extended the use of foam shells. Authorities and police sources have repeatedly implied that foam bullets are not so "harmful". But this is far from reality, and the cases of eleven people injured with these weapons demonstrate this, like those of Tolosa.

Tecnalia has recently produced a report on foam projectiles at the request of the Government Security Department. Berria has gathered some conclusions: SIRX-type foam projectiles can be lethal if they are dropped within ten meters. "The technicians explained in this report that it is very difficult to measure the risk of such weapons," they added in the newspaper. They also picked up a few words from these technicians: "Less deadly shells can cause serious or fatal damage if parts of the body are touched like the head."