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All Guardia Urbana cars will be equipped with bladed weapon detectors
All patrol cars of the Guardia Urbana de Barcelona will be fitted with portable metal detectors to locate bladed weapons. The City Council will take advantage of the upcoming fleet renewal to include these devices as standard equipment in police vehicles.
The measure does not mean that all cars will be fitted with them immediately. The rollout will come with the 184 new vehicles planned for 2027, after the city government has approved the necessary budget to include the detectors in the fleet renewal.
Currently, the Guardia Urbana has 96 metal detector wands. These devices allow officers to check whether a person is carrying knives, blades or other metal objects during checks in public spaces, without having to rely on a specialised unit to bring the equipment.
The announcement comes after a weekend in which five people were injured with bladed weapons in separate incidents recorded in Barcelona. There were incidents in districts such as Nou Barris, Sant Martí y Horta-Guinardó.
The mayor, Jaume Collboni, has linked the reinforcement of police equipment to the need to increase officers’ preventive capacity, and has especially warned against the normalisation of carrying knives and blades among young people.
The addition of detectors to all patrol cars is not just a response to this weekend’s incidents. The city council had already agreed in September 2025 to move in this direction, and the renewal of the fleet now offers the opportunity to extend the equipment to all patrols.
In recent years, Barcelona has stepped up preventive checks with metal detectors in leisure areas, at parties and in places with large crowds. During the summer, the Guardia Urbana also increased their use as part of the specific operation along the seafront.
The difference will come from 2027: patrols will be able to carry their own detector in the vehicle, increasing the availability of this resource during routine interventions anywhere in the city.