Portugal safety and security Report Wednesday 21st September 2022
If ever there was an apt reminder of the need for beach safety, this was certainly realised last weekend when a total of 17 swimmers were rescued from the sea at Mira beach in Coimbra. Sea conditions were poor at the time.
So far this year there have been over 110 drownings in Portugal, the highest for 5 years with still three months to go. We have now come to the end of the bathing season on the mainland and most beaches are without lifeguards.
In the case of Mira beach most of those rescued were reported as foreigners, although it is not clear if they were tourists or residents.
We repeat the advice we have previously given on this topic and that is to enjoy the beach but at the same time take care when entering the water, having regards to sea conditions. Be particularly aware of the presence of rip currents, as well as when suddenly jumping into cold water, the possibility of not only experiencing a cold ‘shock,’ but also developing hypothermia.
Be aware that the sudden shock of the cold water can quickly impact your breathing, your heart rate and your blood pressure enough so that it can be life-threatening. You are then at a greater risk of drowning. Gasping for breath and a sudden spike in your heart/blood pressure can cause an immediate panic/stress for the swimmer, which impairs clear thinking and decision making during a life-threatening situation.
In another beach related incident this time in Viana do Castelo, a 3 year old child “was left by the parents sitting on the sand, next to the water, while they went swimming”, having shortly afterwards “found her lying on the sand, possibly after being hit by a wave”. After being assisted at the scene, she was taken “as a precaution” to Viana do Castelo Hospital, confirming that the “child is fine. Parents should not need reminding how to look after their children – it should be common sense.
On Monday the hacker group Ragnar Locker, responsible for the computer attack on TAP at the end of last month, claimed to have published personal data of 1.5 million airline customers. This Monday 19th September 2022, a document with 581 gigabytes of information was released on the Dark Web. The data includes names, addresses, mobile phone numbers of customers, as well as confidential agreements and professional identity cards and information about incidents during operations.
According to the newspaper Expresso, TAP did not give in to the blackmail of the group of hackers, who say they continue to have access to the airline’s computer systems.
We recommend that TAP customers change their passwords and ensure strong passwords are used and that the dame password is not used on any other accounts especially bank accounts.
The Minister of Internal Administration announced yesterday that crime is decreasing this year compared to 2019, a period before the covid-19 pandemic marked by confinement, but “the intensity of violence is increasing that requires attention”. He said that the Government created the Commission for the Integrated Analysis of Juvenile Delinquency and Crime and the Public Security Police is developing, on its own initiative, a set of interventions, namely special operations in the most crowded places at night.
Monitoring crime in Portugal over the last 11 years, this comes as no surprise given the crime reports released by the police more recently. It is not the numbers that are increasing but the level of violence used. It is important that this is tackled especially late night violence seen in some of the larger cities.
With that please have a safe week. From our team at Safe Communities Portugal.
News
71-year-old pickpocket “earned” 10,000 euros since June
The Lisbon PSP detained a 71-year-old pickpocket for crimes of aggravated theft on buses, trams and trains. The man, already with previous convictions, was in preventive detention.
It selected victims who travelled on public transport in Lisbon and Porto. He used his advanced age to go unnoticed and followed them. Then, he stole their belongings “with great art and cunning from years of acquired criminal knowledge”, describes the PSP.
In 2019, the elderly man had already been investigated and detained in the city of Porto for crimes of the same nature. He was then sentenced to one year and two months in prison suspended for the same period.
In July, investigators from the Lisbon PSP realized that the man had returned to thefts inside buses, trams and trains between Lisbon and Porto.
The PSP team specially created and specialized for this type of crime set up a concerted action and put several investigators on the ground. On September 12, they managed to arrest the suspect, in the act of committing a crime, on Avenida 24 de Julho. Inside tram 15, he had stolen a wallet with money and documents from the inside of the pocket of a Scottish tourist’s shorts. The belongings were recovered and returned to the owner.
After the arrest, a search was carried out in the pension where the detainee was staying, and 1490 euros were seized, two stolen mobile phones – one of them in the metro, in Porto – and gold items worth 4500 euros, purchased with bank cards stolen from the victims, information that may still relate the defendant to other crimes.
However, it was possible to correlate it with 10 more qualified thefts with consistent and solid evidence of its authorship. His activity since June has earned him around 10 thousand euros in illicit income, estimates the PSP.
Since he had dual nationality from Portugal and a South American country, the suspect still travelled between European countries, where he also has criminal references, and practiced other thefts.
The Lisbon Criminal Investigation Judge, to whom the detainee was presented for the first interrogation, decreed that he should await trial in Preventive Prison.
Government will invest about €2 million in vehicles for the PSP and GNR proximity (community patrol) programs
Lisbon, Sep 20, 2022 (Lusa) – The Government plans to invest around two million euros in vehicles “specifically intended for the PSP and GNR proximity programs”, namely Escola Segura, the Minister of Internal Administration announced today.
In the opening session of a seminar organized by the Public Security Police on the 30 years of existence of the Escola Segura program in Portugal, José Luís Carneiro said that this program continues to play a “very relevant role and requires permanent investment, whether in people, in their training, or in the means of work, with a view to improving the ability to intervene”.
“Within the scope of the Integrated Urban Security Strategy, on which we have been working, and which will very soon be put up for public discussion, the Escola Segura program will assume particular centrality. It is a new approach to urban security, based on the principles of prevention, proximity to the citizen, the promotion of local partnerships, the sense of opportunity for evaluation and intervention and the need to promote integration and interconnection between the different intervention programs and instruments on reality”, he explained.
In this sense, the minister advanced that the specific training of police officers assigned to proximity programs will be reinforced and that an investment of around two million euros is planned in vehicles specifically intended for proximity programs for the PSP and GNR, within the scope of programming, investments in the modernization and operation of security forces and services.
According to José Luís Carneiro, the PSP and GNR committed, in the last school year, more than 700 police officers and guards, who carried out 35,808 awareness-raising actions and 204 demonstrations of means, in addition to many thousands of hours dedicated to patrolling and policing the surroundings of school spaces.
The official said that in the last school year there was a decrease in criminal occurrences, with the majority of participations in the school environment related to situations of injuries or threats and offenses to physical integrity.
“Although the provisional crime numbers in 2022, when compared to 2019 – because the years 2020 and 2021 were atypical years, given the confinement – do not show, in general, worrying developments, it is on these crimes, demonstrative of greater violence, that we focus our concern,” he said.
José Luís Carneiro noted that after the pandemic there was “a tendency towards the emergence of behaviours of greater conflict, especially among young people, who go to nightclubs”, therefore, “a careful analysis and reflection” is necessary.
“It is essential that we study and understand this problem. The different dimensions associated with violence, criminality and juvenile delinquency must be worked on in an integrated and sustained way, so that we can understand, upstream, the problems and seek to find solutions and act on the causes”, he stressed.
As an example, the minister reported on the creation of the Commission for the Integrated Analysis of Juvenile Delinquency and Violent Crime, which has already presented guidelines and recommendations to the Government and which will be included in the Integrated Strategy for Urban Security.
Cyclone Vince from 8-11 October 2005 was the first known tropical cyclone to reach the Iberian Peninsula. Hurricane Leslie (2018) and Subtropical Storm Alpha (2020) are two more recent examples of tropical-like cyclones that impacted the Iberian Peninsula.
We published an awareness post about this on Monday on our Facebook page and the following, day the President of Camara Municipal de Manteigas, gave the following statement, accompanied by photographs, of the considerable damaged caused by flash floods and landslips in the municipality overnight.
Data from the Public Security Police were released on the day the 2022/2023 school year begins and on which the PSP guarantees that it will dedicate “special attention” to the safety of the 3,100 schools, involving a total of 150,000 teachers and non-teaching staff and more than 900,000 students, in its area of responsibility.
Hurricane Danielle is a very good example of how such storms behave, in many ways similar to the typhoons we encountered when I lived and worked in Hong Kong. Although technology has improved on the tracking and forecasting of these, their behaviour remains the same. The storms increase and decrease in intensity, and can change direction dramatically. A few days ago a simulation showed that it could affect Portugal mainland and then literally a few hours later it was reported that it was heading in a more north easterly direction, only to find yesterday morning there was a possibility that it could change direction yet again to a south easterly course towards the mainland. Anyway we monitor these closely and if it becomes a potential threat, then we will issue preparedness advice.
Created in the midst of a pandemic, on April 1, 2020, through a partnership between SPMS, EPE, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Order of Portuguese Psychologists, it has been a voice of support for those who seek it in difficult times. According to SPMS, this year alone, [the Line] has already exceeded 46,000 calls. The SNS 24 Psychological Counselling Line now has a service available in English, and since last April 20, it has already answered about 2,500 calls.
The Government’s proposed resolutions on the subject – approved by the Council of Ministers on 14 July – were submitted to the Assembly of the Republic on 19 July, according to the parliament’s website, having been sent to the parliamentary committees on Foreign Affairs and Communities. Portuguese and National Defence.
Portugal is the country where support for the EU’s response is greatest, as 78% of respondents say they are satisfied and only 15% express dissatisfaction (and 07% do not know or do not respond). In Poland, 78% also support the European bloc’s reaction, but 20% say they are dissatisfied (and only 02% do not respond).
Marta Temido began her duties as Minister of Health in October 2018 and was minister during the last three executives led by socialist António Costa. During her mandates, Marta Temido was at the centre of the management of the pandemic, which began in 2020, but also went through several controversies. Recently, the closure of emergency obstetrics services in several hospitals due to a lack of doctors to fill the scales put pressure on the ministry.
On a different note whereas we have been focusing on fires for some time, it was “a few drops of rain in the Algarve” on Sunday that caught the attention of our Facebook followers. The amount of rain did not materialize as the maps indicated but it did not stop around 120 of you sharing your “rain drop” experiences – the post reaching around 12,000 people. Seriously however, this reflects the desperate need there is for a protracted period of rain to in anyway help address the extreme drought problem in the region.
In a statement sent to the newsrooms, the organization explains that the investigation is intended to understand “the reason why the user was transferred”, “who were responsible for the transfer decision and under what clinical assumptions they ensured that the user could be transferred safely “, “what was the situation of the Neonatology Service of the Hospital de Santa Maria on the date of the patient’s transfer”, “in what circumstances the death occurred” and if “there were alternative and safer solutions to the transference of the patient”.