September 1982 Rentería attack

1982 Errenteria ambush

Date	14 September 1982 (1982-09-14)
Location	Errenteria, Basque Autonomous Community, Spain
Result	ETA victory

Belligerents

ETA

Spain

Civil Guard

Strength

Casualties and losses

4 killed, 1 wounded

Spain

The September 1982 Rentería attack was an ambush by the Basque separatist organisation ETA which occurred on 14 September 1982 on the motorway near the Basque town of Errenteria (Spanish: Rentería) in Guipuzkoa. The targets were several national police officers, four of whom were killed in the attack, with the fifth seriously injured. The attack was ETA's deadliest of 1982.

ETA had already killed six people in the area around Rentería between September 1979 and March 1982. The triangle between San Sebastián, Rentería and Andoain had also been one of the focal points of anti-ETA activity and ten people with close connections to ETA had been assassinated there between 1979 and 1981. The attack came one day before the end of the security forces Summer 1982 initiative, which was aimed at reducing ETA activity and had resulted in a 7 per cent drop in the number of ETA killings compared to 1981. The attacks also occurred one month before the Spanish general election, causing consternation among politicians.

At 11:30 in the morning, five police officers drove to the Susperregui bar in the village of Franchilla to have lunch. Three of them arrived in uniform in an official car with distinctive official markings, while the other two were wearing civilian clothes and travelling in a car without any official police identification. According to the shop owner, this was the first time in about a month that the police had visited his bar. However, for around a month, five of the six members of the Donosti unit of ETA which would launch the attack, had lain in wait. They had climbed the nearby hills, the Alto de Perurena, in order to spot a suitable target. On 14 September 1982, the Eta members spotted the two vehicles leaving the bar and driving down the road linking San Sebastián and Rentería in the direction of Rentería. In the vicinity of the Landarbaso caves in Aitzbitarte, about three hundred metres from Listorreta park, the police vehicles were forced to slow down at a very steep curve, greatly reducing their speed. On that corner, near a small ravine, and about half a mile from where they had lunch, the two cars were subjected to crossfire from automatic weapons. The police tried to repel the attack by opening fire with their pistols, but without managing to hit any of their attackers, who were protected by the terrain. Two of the officers, Jesús Ordóñez Pérez and Juan Seronero Sacristán, were killed instantly. The other three, Alfonso López Fernández, Antonio Cedillo Toscano y Juan José Torrente Terrón, were all seriously wounded. Both police vehicles were hit by a total of nearly 100 bullets.

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Wikipedia