A chief inspector in Valencia, Spain has been relieved of duty after saying that nearly all of the street crime in his community involved illegal immigrants.
The Chief Inspector of the Central Police Station in Valencia, Ricardo Ferris, made his statements about migrants and criminality at an event organised by the DENAES Foundation and the parliamentary group of the populist party VOX.
According to Ferris, “practically all street crime is illegal immigrants” in his area. “In the boats, everyone confesses to being criminals and ex-prisoners,” he added.
He also said that “illegal immigration equals crime” and that for the last five years police largely no longer deal with Spanish nationals as criminals.
The comments have led to the General Directorate of the National Police taking disciplinary action and relieving him of his position, El Mundo reports.
Pilar Bernabé, a government delegate in the Valencian Community, stated that an internal investigation had been opened following Ferris’s statements, alleging that the remarks were not backed up by any real-world data.
“The only thing he is doing is attacking the dignity, prestige and good work of the National Police Corps,” Bernabé claimed.
Ferris is not the first police officer in a Western European country to highlight the impact of mass migration on crime, however.
In 2017, Swedish police officer Peter Springare was subjected to an investigation after publicly commenting on how almost all of the serious cases he worked on involved immigrant suspects.
While Springare’s remarks were controversial in 2017, they have become commonplace among police in Sweden in recent years, with Sweden’s National Police Chief Anders Thornberg admitting the connection between migration and crime earlier this year.
In Germany, meanwhile, a 2019 report alleged that authorities in a rural area of the country were engaged in covering up crimes by asylum seekers to avoid stirring up “prejudice” — despite some of the crimes being as serious as rape, assault, and child sexual abuse.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.