Just seen on Twitter: The National Police is going to emphasize the "servir" part of "proteger y servir". How? Well, they've launched an initiative in which you can call them, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you are stuck somewhere on the road with a flat tire or things like that.
How they're going to assist everybody with one van we don't know. The plan is probably a bit of window dressing as well as a way to get traffic going by getting broken down cars moving again, but still, for a change - and this is going to surprise you - we don't really have anything bad to say about this initiative!
Problem with your car? Stuck with a flat or a tailpipe fallen off? Call 511-0239/511-0240 and the police will come help you!
The slogan “to protect and to serve” I have often translated as “to protect our bosses and to serve as means of repression” Although the pessimist in me sees this as an attempt to cover abuses they have been continually accused of by the very people they are supposed to protect, the optimist in me would like to think this is a first step to make the police part of the community instead of an elitist force above the rest of us (the way the fuerza de defensa used to be). Time will tell which of the two is the correct one.