Sanxenxo police chief sued over Facebook photo

A local Facebook post turned into a criminal complaint, then an appeal, and now a small but revealing court ruling in Galicia. The case is about municipal waste enforcement, reputation, and the blurry line between warning the public and publicly shaming someone. This week, the Audiencia de Pontevedra backed the Sanxenxo police chief, José Manuel Duarte, and threw out the accusation that he committed criminal insult by getting a photo of a truck posted on the town’s Facebook page. ### What kicked this off? The whole thing goes back to May 2025, when Sanxenxo’s town hall said local police had identified a resident for allegedly dumping bus seats and other items into a container in the Nantes industrial estate. The post included a photo of a crane truck with bus seats hanging from it, and the town said the person involved could face a fine under Galicia’s waste law. Other local outlets repeated the claim, and that is what gave the story a bigger public life. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why did the truck owner sue? The owner said the post did not use his name, but the truck and visible plate were enough for people to recognize him. He argued that this triggered insults, nasty calls, and damage to both his dignity and his business reputation. His version of events was much narrower — he said they had gone there only to throw away a small cardboard box, and that the bus seats were never dumped at all. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why was Duarte the target? The complaint focused on Duarte because the truck owner said the police chief was the person who ordered or supplied the information for the Facebook post. In the earlier filing, the accuser argued that police already knew the more serious version of events was false and that publishing it anyway crossed into defamation or insult. Basically, this was not just “the town posted something.” It was “a specific official caused the town to post something false.” (lavozdegalicia.es) ### What did the lower court do? The first stop was the court in Cambados. That court did not even admit the complaint for processing. The truck owner then appealed, which is why the case reached the Audiencia de Pontevedra. So the news now is not that a trial ended after weighing lots of live testimony — it is that the higher court agreed there still was not a criminal insult case here. (pontevedraviva.com) ### Why did the appeal fail? The Audiencia’s reasoning is pretty simple. The judges said the Facebook post and photo did not provide the citizen’s identity and did not use insulting expressions beyond describing the conduct in legal terms. That matters because Spanish criminal insult law is not triggered just because a post is embarrassing or because people infer who someone is. The court basically drew the line at explicit identification and degrading language. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Did the court settle the dumping dispute? Not really. And that is the catch. The ruling, at least from what is public, is narrower than “the dumping definitely happened exactly as the town said.” It says there is no criminal injuria in the publication itself. The accuser still insists the account was false and says a bystander’s complaint set off the whole chain. So the legal win for Duarte is about the nature of the Facebook post, not a full public reconstruction of every movement around that container. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why does this matter beyond one post? Because towns now use Facebook like a public noticeboard, a tip line, and sometimes a deterrent. But once a vehicle, a plate, or a recognizable image goes up, “we didn’t name him” can be technically true and socially weak. This case shows courts may still protect officials if the post sticks to legal descriptions and avoids direct personal abuse — even when the person shown says everyone knew who it was. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Bottom line? This was a very local fight, but it lands on a bigger question — when a town hall posts enforcement photos, is it informing the public or staging a public shaming? In Sanxenxo, the appeal court said this post stayed on the lawful side of that line. (lavozdegalicia.es)