La policía llegó rápido al accidente.

quick

Breakdown of La policía llegó rápido al accidente.

• llegar: to arrive
• a: at
• el accidente: the accident

Questions & Answers about La policía llegó rápido al accidente.

Why is it la policía and not el policía?

Spanish uses la policía (feminine, singular) to talk about:

• the police force as an institution
• the police as a group in general

El policía means one male police officer (an individual person).
For a female officer you can say la policía (context shows it’s a person, not the institution) or la mujer policía / la agente de policía.

In this sentence, we mean the police (as a force) arrived, so la policía is the natural choice.

Is policía singular or plural here? Why llegó and not llegaron?

Here la policía is grammatically singular, so the verb must be singular: llegó.

• La policía llegó… = The police arrived… (the force / the body of police)
• Los policías llegaron… = The (individual) police officers arrived…

You cannot say ✗ La policía llegaron… in standard Spanish.
If you want a plural verb, you must change the noun to los policías.

Why do we use la in Spanish when in English we often just say “Police arrived quickly” without “the”?