Following the overthrow of the
Second Spanish Republic in April 1939, the Francoist Spain initially relied on the
Army in order to handle public order issues. 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 a
paramilitary national armed police that could be used to suppress disturbance of the public order and political organization in urban areas. 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 the
Civil Guard that operated mainly in rural areas. At the time of the
Spanish coup of July 1936 that marked the onset of the
Spanish Civil War most garrisons of the uniformed civilian police corps, the
Cuerpo de Seguridad had stayed loyal to the
Republican government and many of their units fought valiantly in the battlefronts against the
Nationalists. This display of loyalty towards the Spanish Republic brought about the disbandment of the corps by
General Franco at the end of the Civil War. The guards of the
Cuerpo de Seguridad who had survived the war and the ensuing
Francoist purges were made part of the Policía Armada, the corps that replaced it. The was placed under the Directorate-General of Security
(Dirección General de Seguridad) of the Spanish
Ministry 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 as
Madrid,
Barcelona,
Bilbao and
Valencia, as well as the industrial areas of Spain such as parts of
Asturias and the
Basque country, where its well-equipped anti-
riot units were ruthless and effective in quelling
demonstrations by university students and workers that were often very large. In the months after the death of the
caudillo the Armed Police actively cracked down on protests and political rallies, continuing the infamous
riot control operations of the Francoist State. Viewed as unpopular and too closely identified with Franco's Spain, the was slightly reorganized in the first years of the
Spanish transition to democracy. The effort, however, proved itself hopeless as the brutal and harsh image of the corps could not be improved and in 1978 the Armed Police was replaced by the
Cuerpo de Policía Nacional (Corps of National Police), later dissolved in 1986 alongside the
Cuerpo Superior de Policía (Superior Police Corps) to give way to a merger between uniformed and plainclothes urban police forces resulting in the modern day
Cuerpo Nacional de Policía (National Police Corps). 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.
Human rights abuses The
Policía Armada, together with the Guardia Civil, became notorious during the decades of Francoism for its ruthless methods and for widespread
human rights abuses against its victims. Indiscriminate beatings of detainees and
torture, with or without
interrogation, were commonplace in the many
police stations
(Comisarías) as well as in the headquarters of the Armed Police. Interrogations usually included a member of the
Brigada Político-Social, the Francoist political repression wing. The brutal image of the Spanish police would be so pervasive that it has continued to haunt the National Police Corps that replaced the
Policía Armada following the Spanish Transition to this day. ==Ranks==