Emergency response overkill on the Costa del Sol, Spain

You know things are quiet when this kind of thing happens. Roughly 25 emergency vehicles responded to one little crime this afternoon, at high speed, with sirens blaring.

There I was, crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing, minding my own business, when bee-bah-bee-bah, I nearly get wiped out by a police tow truck. I scrambled to the pavement safely, wondering what kind of emergency tow could possibly be required that needs sirens and such high speed?

The vehicle turned the corner, so, ever-inquisitive, I did too. I was then confronted with flashing lights, police cars, police scooters and even another tow truck, all with sirens blaring as they arrived. The whole darn two-lane street was full of official vehicles. This happened outside the Hotel Las Palmeras, near the beach in Fuengirola.

“Wow,” I thought, some major crime is going down right now, I have to do my journalistic duty. So, adrenalin surging, I started asking onlookers what was going on. Hardly anyone spoke either Spanish or English (they were mostly Germans and Scandinavians on holiday) and no one actually seemed to know. The police looked a tad too, well, you know, busy and important, for me to dare to approach them.

I saw two young guys about to get into a police car, one was holding his eye in pain, the other opened the car’s trunk and put something inside, but that was about it. “Nada más,” (nothing more) as they say in these parts.

On turning the corner at the bottom of the road I found out from a guy at a bar that the two young guys had robbed a shop and had run around that corner heading for the hotel a few minutes earlier.

They apparently took a whole 80 euros' ($110) worth of stuff and what seemed like the entire Local Police force in Fuengirola was there to solve the heinous crime.

Heading down the beach promenade a couple of minutes later, I saw two fire engines heading in the same direction. I just laughed and shook my head. Enough is enough, guys. Really.

It does bring to mind a similar incident in Cape Town, South Africa back in 1995. I had just moved into a second floor apartment and was standing on my balcony looking at the view. I heard a loud thump, looked down and saw a man lying on the ground in front of the garage doors.

My phone line hadn’t been connected yet and cell phones weren’t exactly rife like they are these days, but someone phoned the emergency number.

A couple minutes later, the man stood up, brushed himself off and looked around, just as the sirens started. If memory serves me correctly, in that case there were four police cars, three ambulances, two fire engines, one small emergency vehicle, three cops on motorbikes and three tow trucks.

Turned out the guy was a little tipsy and fell off the balcony. He was lucky and only suffered a few bruises, but the whole neighborhood got to enjoy the show.

Funny thing, though, have you noticed that if you need them urgently, they never seem to be around? Why is that?

Originally published on allvoices.com