Juan Ignacio Calvo Guerrero

Description

Each morning, a Civil Guard convoy consisting of a coach, a minibus and an off-road vehicle took seventy officers, aged between 18 and 25, from the Traffic School on Calle Príncipe de Vergara to the motorcycle practice ground in Venta de la Rubia, on the outskirts of Madrid. On the morning of 14 June 1986, ETA terrorists planted a van containing 35 kilograms of explosives and various kilograms of shrapnel in Plaza de la República Dominicana. They detonated the explosives as the Civil Guard convoy was passing Number 7. Twelve civil guards were killed and a further 78 people (including officers and passers-by) were injured by the huge blast.

Juan Ignacio Calvo Guerrero, who was originally from La Pola de Gordón in León, was admitted to hospital with very serious injuries to the brain and several other vital organs. He died on August 5, 1986. A colleague of the twelve murdered Civil Guards later said “They died because they loved the Civil Guard, they liked the uniform they represented and because you have to be a Civil Guard to know how to die”.

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