The Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating a call disseminated through TikTok as a possible origin of the serious disturbances recorded this Saturday, October 24, in the center of Barcelona, where a concentration of around 600 young people ended in looting, fires of urban furniture, and confrontations with the security forces. The Catalan police point to different profiles linked to the tag "Blocus", which would have promoted the mobilization through social networks before transferring part of the coordination to groups on Telegram and WhatsApp. The provisional balance amounts to 128 people detained, 72 of them minors, and 15 agents injured, four of them seriously.
The chief commissioner of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Sílvia Catà, explained this Sunday, in statements to Catalunya Ràdio, that the police force had been following the movements of these profiles for several days, although the intensity of the disturbances surprised the agents. According to her, investigators are now working to determine who is behind the accounts that disseminated the call and whether there was an organized structure to promote the vandalistic acts. The main police hypothesis points to an attempt to reproduce in Barcelona the episodes of street violence recorded in recent weeks in France.
From TikTok to Telegram and WhatsApp: this is how the call was organized
The first calls to participate in the concentration began to circulate on TikTok at least since October 20, through posts that used the name "Blocus Barcelona". The messages referred to youth mobilizations similar to those held in France, where protests related to the educational sphere had led to various episodes of violence.
According to information published by 3CatInfo and El País, some of the content disseminated included QR codes and links that allowed access to private WhatsApp and Telegram groups. In these channels, instructions were shared about the clothing of the participants, how to act during the concentration, and the objects they should bring.
Although some messages demanded that the protest be peaceful, others explicitly encouraged committing vandalistic acts and looting commercial establishments. The Mossos are now investigating to what extent these communications influenced the incidents and who their main promoters were.
The call had been presented under slogans related to education and summoned participants to the plaza de Catalunya in Barcelona. However, the concentration ended up turning into a succession of destruction and confrontations with the police.
"It was not a demonstration like the ones we are used to"
The chief commissioner of the Mossos has acknowledged that the development of events was surprising for the agents themselves. "It is quite inexplicable", Catà stated about the dynamics of the disturbances, before emphasizing that it was not a conventional reivindicative concentration.
The police official explained that participants were divided into small groups that acted in a dispersed manner, making it difficult for security units to intervene. According to her assessment, they were not structured groups with a common claim, but rather young people who had joined a call spread through the internet and ended up engaging in vandalistic acts.
In this sense, the Mossos believe that the disturbances aimed to imitate scenes of violence recorded recently in different French cities. The Catalan police are maintaining contacts with other European bodies to analyze possible similarities between the calls and determine if there is any connection between their promoters.
Catà also clarified that the detainees reside in Catalonia, ruling out that the altercations were led by groups displaced from France.
128 detainees, 72 minors, and 23 vandalized businesses
The latest balance communicated by the Mossos d'Esquadra reflects the magnitude of the incidents. A total of 128 people were detained, of which 72 are minors, representing approximately 56% of those arrested. Among them are adolescents of 14 years, although the majority of the detained minors are between 16 and 17.
Of the total arrested, 122 are men and six women. According to police information, only two had previous records for public disorder.
The disturbances also left 15 police officers injured: 14 agents of the Mossos d'Esquadra and one from the Urban Guard of Barcelona. Four of the affected agents suffered serious injuries that forced them to take leave.
The material damages extended across different streets in the city center, especially around the plaza de Catalunya and the main commercial areas. The police have counted 23 vandalized or looted establishments, while the firefighters had to carry out 33 interventions related to fires, mainly of containers and other elements of urban furniture.
During the operation, knives, sprays, balaclavas, pyrotechnic material, and stones, among other objects, were also seized.
The Mossos investigate the promoters of "Blocus"
One of the main lines of investigation now focuses on identifying those responsible for the TikTok profiles that promoted the gathering and reconstructing how the call spread among different groups of young people.
The agents had already detected movements on social media in the days prior and had prepared a surveillance device. However, according to police sources cited by El País, the initial forecast was that about 300 people would participate and that incidents of lesser intensity would occur, a scenario that was widely exceeded.
The investigation will also need to clarify whether the vandalistic acts responded to a common planning or if different individuals took advantage of the gathering to commit crimes independently. For now, the Mossos have not accredited the existence of a criminal organization behind the disturbances, although they continue to examine the activity of the implicated profiles and messaging groups.
The incidents have also provoked an institutional response. The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, has announced that the City Council will join the judicial proceedings that arise from the damages, while the Generalitat has insisted on the need to differentiate the legitimate right to protest from criminal acts.
The Catalan police keep the investigation open in light of the possibility that new similar calls may be promoted. The immediate objective is to identify their promoters and clarify how a mobilization spread on TikTok ended up triggering one of the most serious days of disturbances recorded recently in the center of Barcelona.