A man was arrested after being caught masturbating in public at the entrance of a primary school in Palma de Mallorca as children arrived for the morning, with off-duty police officers who were dropping off their own children intervening to restrain him until uniformed colleagues reached the scene.
The incident occurred at around 9am on Tuesday 26 May outside the Colegio Madre Alberta, a state school in the Spanish island’s capital. According to reports by Ultima Hora and other Spanish local media, the suspect — a 30-year-old Mexican national — was found with his trousers down and a one-litre beer bottle nearby, in plain view of parents and children entering the school at the start of the day.
Multiple parents called the emergency services. Three National Police officers who happened to be at the school gates dropping off their own children immediately intervened and physically restrained the man until local police arrived. He was arrested on suspicion of exhibitionism. The school filed an immediate protection complaint and sought a restraining order against him.
The suspect was brought before a judge on Wednesday 28 May. He was released but issued with a no-approach order prohibiting him from going near the school. Spanish reports described him as intoxicated at the time of the incident and indicated he had been living in a makeshift shelter in the surrounding area. He had reportedly been seen in the vicinity on previous occasions.
The rapid intervention of the off-duty officers was widely praised online, with the footage of the arrest spreading quickly across social media platforms. The incident has fuelled significant public anger in Spain, with parents raising concerns about school safety and calling for stronger enforcement around educational premises.
The case comes amid a broader European conversation about public order, enforcement and the policing of areas immediately surrounding schools. While incidents of public indecency occur across many countries for a range of reasons including intoxication and mental health factors, cases of this nature — taking place in daylight, in front of children, at school gates — have proved particularly incendiary and have intensified calls for more robust preventive measures in sensitive public locations.
