By our correspondent
Yesterday I watched a video clip recorded during a street encounter between local police officers and former Minister Malima. From the clip it appears that Mr Malima came out of his car and a gang of 3 officers approached him ordering him to go back in his car. While Mr Malima was trying to get certain explanation from the officers, one of them approached him, and fired his weapon in the air in an effort to intimidate the Minister.
My take on this incident is that, first and foremost, let’s be very careful not to use this incident of one bad, crazy police officer and paint all TZ cops with a broad brush. There are thousands of people who wear uniform, wake up every day and work their butt off to keep us safe and reinforce the law in a truthful manner. It is dangerous and unnecessary to attribute one bad police officer’s misconduct to the general behavior of all law enforcement officers in the county.
Having said that, the issue is not however, what this crazy police did, rather what he said during the encounter. Which is “I’m the government, I wear a flag on my belt, I took an oath, I have the load of the government’s power on me, why do you people not respect me, why do you people not respect the government?’’ His statement is very familiar to what many Tanzanians have heard, especially if you have had any encounter with our Government officials.
Yesterday I watched a video clip recorded during a street encounter between local police officers and former Minister Malima. From the clip it appears that Mr Malima came out of his car and a gang of 3 officers approached him ordering him to go back in his car. While Mr Malima was trying to get certain explanation from the officers, one of them approached him, and fired his weapon in the air in an effort to intimidate the Minister.
My take on this incident is that, first and foremost, let’s be very careful not to use this incident of one bad, crazy police officer and paint all TZ cops with a broad brush. There are thousands of people who wear uniform, wake up every day and work their butt off to keep us safe and reinforce the law in a truthful manner. It is dangerous and unnecessary to attribute one bad police officer’s misconduct to the general behavior of all law enforcement officers in the county.
Having said that, the issue is not however, what this crazy police did, rather what he said during the encounter. Which is “I’m the government, I wear a flag on my belt, I took an oath, I have the load of the government’s power on me, why do you people not respect me, why do you people not respect the government?’’ His statement is very familiar to what many Tanzanians have heard, especially if you have had any encounter with our Government officials.
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