Lisbon Police Open an Inquiry Into Two Officers Accused of Not Helping a Fatally Stabbed Man at Cais do Sodre

Portugal's Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP, Public Security Police) has opened an internal inquiry into the conduct of two of its officers after a witness alleged they stood by and did not help a young man who was fatally stabbed at Cais do Sodré in central Lisbon. The force confirmed the investigation on 19 August, three days after the killing.

The victim, a 25-year-old man, was stabbed on the afternoon of Sunday 16 August in the riverside district — a busy hub of bars, ferry terminals and nightlife just west of the city centre — and later died. The circumstances of the attack itself remain under separate criminal investigation.

An accusation posted online

The inquiry was triggered by a public account from a bystander, who described the episode on social media and said the emergency response had been slow. According to that account, two PSP officers were close to the scene but "refused" to intervene because they were working a serviço gratificado — a paid, off-duty policing detail hired privately by a business or event organiser, in which officers in uniform provide security outside their normal shift.

Those claims, which spread quickly online, are exactly what the internal inquiry is meant to test. The PSP has not confirmed the version of events and is examining what the two officers knew, where they were and how they acted in the minutes around the attack. No conclusions have been announced, and the officers have not been publicly identified.

How paid details work

The serviço gratificado is a long-standing feature of Portuguese policing. It allows private entities — shops, clubs, sports venues, concert promoters — to pay for uniformed officers to provide a security presence during their own hours off, with the fees channelled through the force. Supporters argue it puts more police on the street at no cost to the state; critics have long questioned whether officers on a privately funded detail are clear about their duties when something happens beyond the premises they were hired to watch.

That tension sits at the centre of this case. Portuguese officers retain their powers and obligations as police even while on a paid detail, so the question of whether a duty to act was met — or set aside because the incident fell outside the paid assignment — is precisely what the PSP's inquiry will have to resolve.

What this means

For now, two investigations are running in parallel: a criminal case into the stabbing, and an internal one into the officers' response. The outcome of the second could reach beyond a single Sunday afternoon in Lisbon. If the inquiry finds that officers on a paid detail treated a nearby emergency as someone else's problem, it will sharpen a debate the force has largely kept quiet — over how the serviço gratificado is supervised and where an off-duty commitment ends and the basic obligations of a police officer begin. Until the PSP reports its findings, the allegation remains just that, and the account of a single witness will be weighed against what the officers themselves say happened.