{UAH} COPS INSENSITIVITY BORDERS ON THE SUBVERSIVE
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P.O.L.I.C.E stands for Polite Obedient Loyal Intelligent Courageous
Eager. It's the security organ charged with maintaining law and order,
generally, through arrangements made in all civilized countries to
ensure citizens' well-being.
Police's efficiency depends on the approval and co-operation of the
public and one of the key principles of modern policing is that the
police seek to work with the community in what has been packaged as
"community policing" here in Uganda. Nevertheless, enforcement of law
and order is an unpopular venture. It's only by weaving positive links
with law-abiding citizens that police performs finest. "Law-abiding"
is a definite term here.
Stories of gory behaviors by cops against irreproachable citizens fill
the place. It's as if some demon has awoken from slumber and possessed
cops against the people they are supposed to work with and for.
A boda boda cyclist operating in one of the districts near Kampala
related to me how he was hounded by cops in full view of his wife and
children. He was returning home on his motorcycle after a day of
particular toil. Just as he branched off the road into his compound, a
line of cops on patrol stopped him. They wanted to know who he was,
where he was coming from and where to. He told them he was retiring
from work. He was startled when they suggested that he wasn't supposed
to be out at that time (midnight). He responded that nobody had ever
told him before. They started beating him (with batons), slapping,
claiming he was a thug. He pleaded that he wasn't and that his family
could testify. As the beating intensified, the wife and kids emerged
from the house in shock but they could do nothing. The hounding only
stopped after they emptied his pockets and left him in pain.
Another rider was roused from sleep by a neighbor who had a very sick
child and wanted to be rushed to Naggalama hospital. The rider obliged
and made a dash for the hospital, several miles away. On his way back
at Mukono town, cops "cut him off". They wanted to know what he was
doing out at that time. He told them why.
Beatings ensued. They said he was an iron-bar hitman. There was no
relenting till he was bleeding and too feeble. They towed him off to
their base and locked him up without charge. In the morning he was in
such bad condition that people who came to see him just concurred that
he needed imperative medical attention. The cops turned down the idea.
Just then, a phone call came through on the boda boda man's mobile
that the child he had conveyed to hospital had died. The "prisoner"
was later set free, only to die suddenly recently.
A sudden death indeed! Colleagues say he returned home at lunch time
to check on his children and decided to lie down for a quick nap. He
never woke up again.
Another related how he was walking home after work (along Gayaza road)
at about 10pm only to meet cops on the way. He wasn't worried,
thinking he was beyond suspicion. The cops stopped him. They quizzed
him repeatedly and started manhandling him. Every answer he gave they
twisted it. No politeness, no sign of intelligence or obedience! They
ransacked him but when he asked them to move to his home to ascertain
that he was a resident, they refused and started dragging him away. He
desperately phoned an MP who had given him a lift up to that point.
The MP drove back and rescued him after scolding the marauding rogues.
That's not all, there is troubling tendency by cops of planting
exhibits on innocent citizens. They move with incriminating items like
drugs, hard objects, documents which they place on the victims and
claim they were there in the first place. Extricating oneself takes no
less than a pay-off or intervention by someone "big". Note that these
are personal tales of people who faced maltreatment on no legally or
humanely fathomable rationale.
Forget outcry over corruption and brutality against protesters. Money
is not a big deal compared to a person's dignity and freedom from pain
while protestation is a form of aggression. These are innocent
civilians, absolutely free of provocative moves and motives.
Crime incidences are on the increase but when otherwise prestigious,
practical and essential law-enforcement operations like night patrols
turn into terror runs, you know nobody is safe. There is no way police
is going to manage crime when law-abiding citizens start to dread them
from afar. In contrast, the "storytellers" expressed reassurance
whenever they see soldiers. Although not all cops behave as if
possessed, all is not well. The bad ones are doing all they can to
annoy the populace. Whose interests they serve is a mystery.
SYMPTOM: There is a joke that during the recent media siege in search
of Gen. Sejusa's letters, cops carried away monitors and left behind
CPUs.
Robert Atuhairwe
Published by Red Pepper on Thursday August 8, 2013
--
"TRY TO GROW UP!"
Eager. It's the security organ charged with maintaining law and order,
generally, through arrangements made in all civilized countries to
ensure citizens' well-being.
Police's efficiency depends on the approval and co-operation of the
public and one of the key principles of modern policing is that the
police seek to work with the community in what has been packaged as
"community policing" here in Uganda. Nevertheless, enforcement of law
and order is an unpopular venture. It's only by weaving positive links
with law-abiding citizens that police performs finest. "Law-abiding"
is a definite term here.
Stories of gory behaviors by cops against irreproachable citizens fill
the place. It's as if some demon has awoken from slumber and possessed
cops against the people they are supposed to work with and for.
A boda boda cyclist operating in one of the districts near Kampala
related to me how he was hounded by cops in full view of his wife and
children. He was returning home on his motorcycle after a day of
particular toil. Just as he branched off the road into his compound, a
line of cops on patrol stopped him. They wanted to know who he was,
where he was coming from and where to. He told them he was retiring
from work. He was startled when they suggested that he wasn't supposed
to be out at that time (midnight). He responded that nobody had ever
told him before. They started beating him (with batons), slapping,
claiming he was a thug. He pleaded that he wasn't and that his family
could testify. As the beating intensified, the wife and kids emerged
from the house in shock but they could do nothing. The hounding only
stopped after they emptied his pockets and left him in pain.
Another rider was roused from sleep by a neighbor who had a very sick
child and wanted to be rushed to Naggalama hospital. The rider obliged
and made a dash for the hospital, several miles away. On his way back
at Mukono town, cops "cut him off". They wanted to know what he was
doing out at that time. He told them why.
Beatings ensued. They said he was an iron-bar hitman. There was no
relenting till he was bleeding and too feeble. They towed him off to
their base and locked him up without charge. In the morning he was in
such bad condition that people who came to see him just concurred that
he needed imperative medical attention. The cops turned down the idea.
Just then, a phone call came through on the boda boda man's mobile
that the child he had conveyed to hospital had died. The "prisoner"
was later set free, only to die suddenly recently.
A sudden death indeed! Colleagues say he returned home at lunch time
to check on his children and decided to lie down for a quick nap. He
never woke up again.
Another related how he was walking home after work (along Gayaza road)
at about 10pm only to meet cops on the way. He wasn't worried,
thinking he was beyond suspicion. The cops stopped him. They quizzed
him repeatedly and started manhandling him. Every answer he gave they
twisted it. No politeness, no sign of intelligence or obedience! They
ransacked him but when he asked them to move to his home to ascertain
that he was a resident, they refused and started dragging him away. He
desperately phoned an MP who had given him a lift up to that point.
The MP drove back and rescued him after scolding the marauding rogues.
That's not all, there is troubling tendency by cops of planting
exhibits on innocent citizens. They move with incriminating items like
drugs, hard objects, documents which they place on the victims and
claim they were there in the first place. Extricating oneself takes no
less than a pay-off or intervention by someone "big". Note that these
are personal tales of people who faced maltreatment on no legally or
humanely fathomable rationale.
Forget outcry over corruption and brutality against protesters. Money
is not a big deal compared to a person's dignity and freedom from pain
while protestation is a form of aggression. These are innocent
civilians, absolutely free of provocative moves and motives.
Crime incidences are on the increase but when otherwise prestigious,
practical and essential law-enforcement operations like night patrols
turn into terror runs, you know nobody is safe. There is no way police
is going to manage crime when law-abiding citizens start to dread them
from afar. In contrast, the "storytellers" expressed reassurance
whenever they see soldiers. Although not all cops behave as if
possessed, all is not well. The bad ones are doing all they can to
annoy the populace. Whose interests they serve is a mystery.
SYMPTOM: There is a joke that during the recent media siege in search
of Gen. Sejusa's letters, cops carried away monitors and left behind
CPUs.
Robert Atuhairwe
Published by Red Pepper on Thursday August 8, 2013
--
"TRY TO GROW UP!"
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