The death of Haitham, a 35-year-old Moroccan man, during a police intervention in the Spanish city of Torremolinos, cannot be treated as a routine incident. It represents a critical moment that exposes deeper structural questions about the use of force, institutional accountability, and the fragile position of migrant bodies within security-driven societies.
Video footage circulating online shows a man restrained inside a mobile phone shop, subjected to multiple electric shocks from stun guns while screaming in pain. Beyond the technical debate over protocols and voltage levels, a more fundamental question emerges: at what point does law enforcement cross the line from control into lethal violence? And why does this line seem easier to cross when the person involved is a migrant?
The official police narrative, which refers to an “advanced state of agitation” and operational necessity, clashes sharply with the family’s account and the visual evidence. This contradiction feeds a long-standing distrust toward institutional explanations, particularly in cases involving racialized or migrant victims. Can such deaths still be framed as isolated incidents when several people of migrant background have died during police operations in Spain this year alone?
Legally, Spanish law restricts the use of stun guns to situations of “extreme necessity.” Yet the concept of necessity remains vague and open to interpretation, especially when officers are not required to carry defibrillators or life-saving equipment. How can the state authorize potentially lethal force without simultaneously ensuring immediate medical safeguards?
Politically, the case has sparked reactions from left-wing parties and human rights organizations, some of which openly raise the possibility of racist motives. While sensitive, this hypothesis cannot be dismissed lightly in light of repeated patterns and conflicting evidence. Are European democracies truly prepared to confront systemic bias within their own security institutions?
The candles, memorials, and protest slogans placed at the scene of Haitham’s death are more than expressions of grief. They are acts of symbolic resistance against forgetting, and against narratives that strip victims of their humanity by reducing them to “threats” or “situations.”
Ultimately, the Haitham case is not only about legal responsibility. It raises broader moral and political questions: Who oversees those entrusted with the monopoly of force? Where does state authority end when human life is lost? And how many similar tragedies will it take before these questions move from the margins to the center of public debate?
