You hear stories about cops arresting touts and kombi drivers for picking passengers from “undesignated pick up points” but you never imagine that you will be arrested for boarding a kombi at an “undesignated pick up point.”
So it was that on a Sunday morning around 9 o’clock while travelling with my pregnant wife we boarded an almost empty kombi in Bulawayo’s CBD, something routine that we do all the time. Sitting in front with the driver were two passengers, and at the back seat sat three other people, and as we sat, a woman followed and sat on that seat that blocks the entrance of other passengers.
When the tout told her to kindly move to the other seat, she ignored him and instead concentrated on punching numbers on her Blackberry.
Again the tout asked her to move, but she coolly told the driver, “you are under arrest.”
Turns out the other three “passengers” sitting at the back seat were also cops as they began threatening the touts who were now pleading with the female cop to at least let the passengers go.
None of the cops had bothered to flash their IDs as would be the standard routine.
As the touts crowded the kombi pleading for our release, it only appeared to strengthen the female cop’s resolve to “take us in.”
Turned out the touts knew better: they could well find themselves under arrest too for “interfering with the lawful duties of an officer of the law.”
Tails between their legs, the touts watched as the kombi drove off.
The driver was told to drive to Central Police Station, and as he took his time, driving slowly as if kerb crawling and asking the female crime fighter to release us, she told him to drive on and shut the fuck up. When we got to the station, a uniformed cop who met us by the gate said to the arresting officer “let these others go just take two,” referring to the two fellows who had been sitting with the driver.
But the determined crime fighter would have none of it.
So it was that together with my pregnant wife we found ourselves sitting on the dirty floor of a small room at the Central Police Station.
The arresting officer quickly jumped into action to “process papers” in preparation for fining us for boarding a kombi at an undesignated spot.
I was hearing it for the first time, and so did everyone else here.
But the cops were quick to recite what they learned at Morris Depot: ignorance of the law is no defence!
I just looked at them in utter disdain.
I’m like, “what the fuck is this?” But what do you know.
A scrawny male cop says, “it wasn’t necessary that all these people come here,” in response to protests by some passengers from another kombi that they shouldn’t have been arrested.
“It is the arresting officer’s discretion to let passengers go, since you have already been brought here, there is nothing I can do,” the thin cop explained.
We after all could be “cautioned” and let go with a warning not to board kombis at undesignated pick up points.
And the discretion starts working there for others. Incompetent nincompoops, uninformed uniformed forces, I curse. Turns out one of the chaps who had been arrested with us was himself a cop stationed in Fairbridge.
The stern arresting officer let him go.
Then a young man arrested in another kombi is also let go: “Warned and cautioned,” to use their parlance.
A dark skinny fellow also arrested with the young man keeps the small room alight with his own brand of humour despite the circumstances.
When the cops ask for his age, he tells them he is 52.
The cops don’t believe him because he doesn’t look it.
“Just believe what I’m telling you,” he says.
But they have a hard time doing so, seeing the fellow is on the tipsy side of things.
So, when were you born, a female cop asks him.
19 September 1962, he replies.
And the cops, now numbering about eight, tear into him like greedy Zanu PF officials tearing into Marange diamonds.
It’s a slow day and these cops could use a bit of some show and waste people’s time pretending they are a busy lot.
“Do you know it is offence to give an officer of the law false information,” they ask him. If you were born in 1962, you are certainly not 52, they tell him.
“Believe what you want, you asked for my age I gave it to you. I was born 19 September 1962 and am 52 years old.”
But I do not find anything amusing.
I shouldn’t be sitting here with a pregnant woman among this crap.
One by one, our names are taken and what do you know, I supply a false name to an officer of the law!
Why the fuck should I give them my real name? Everyone does it as far as I am concerned! Unlicenced drivers give cops names of buddies or brothers with licences who will simply walk into the police station pay the fine, end of story.
Meanwhile, the funny guy asks for the loo.
He is escorted by a male cop, and we hear his signature loud laugh as he walks along the corridor, and it is an hour later that I get to know what that boisterous laugh was about.
He did not return!
Turns out like Bart Simpson, he was saying “so long suckers!”
The visibly malnourished male cop, who the bevy of female police officers address rather comically referring to him as “shef” says those with fines can come with him to pay up.
All the while I am sitting and wondering if this is really a job that one actually leaves their warm beds in the morning, kisses the wife and kids and says, “I’m off to work” meaning this crap. I tell the wife no one is paying anything.
There are murmurs of protests as about fifteen people arrested for boarding a kombi at an undesignated point say they have no money to pay the USD5 fine.
Among us is a young woman who is having a terrible time.
Apparently she is a foreigner and cannot understand a word of Shona, which turns out to be the standard police station language.
She calls someone and says over the phone, “I don’t know why I was arrested and I cannot understand what they are saying, please hurry and come here.”
I feel sorry for her. But I feel even “more sorry” for these cops.
A room full of female cops watches with glee a heavily pregnant woman sitting on the floor arrested “for boarding a kombi at an undesignated pick up point.”
My rage by now knows no bounds. But I know better than raise my finger. Or mouth.
I have had my own fair of brushes with the law in the past and attempted to question the logic of arresting someone for public drinking when they are sitting in front of their home and lived to regret it.
We sit, and sit, and sit, and sit.
And the female cops are evidently enjoying the power they wield over lesser mortals.
Of course I have enough money in my pocket to pay the fine, enough to pay for everyone in the room even, but I have a problem with making a donation to the state because some silly cop thinks she can be overlord over civilians. Why give her that satisfaction? Yet I still haven it at the back my mind that I can pay the fine, get on with my life and get away from this nonsense.
Yet I still have at the back of my mind the Anti-corruption Trust of Southern Africa report on traffic police corruption that these people detain you long enough to break you to bribe them. This is it, I think to myself.
After all, the 52 year old chap disappeared without any reference to him going to pay the fine.
I am going to sit this crap through, but what about the pregnant wife?
Then I suggested to my wife that she asks one of the remaining female cops if can use the loo, calculating that seeing her big belly, “she would have mercy on her” and release her “with a caution.”
Then, according to my flawed logic, she would tell them she is travelling with her husband and we would be on our way.
After all, didn’t their thin boss say it is their discretion to release us?
Wasn’t the other young man released with a mere caution? Why not then a pregnant woman?
Much to my chagrin, this doesn’t work!
She is shown the loo and returns to sit on the floor without any word!
I can see this going to take forever.
Minutes later, one female cop says, “maybe we can release the pregnant lady.”
She is met with silence from her colleagues.
The room listens in anticipation.
Silence.
The arresting officer, in her own way of feminine mystique, makes damn sure her eyes do not meet ours.
I can see she is making an effort to avoid any eye contact with a pregnant woman, something which would appeal to her feminine sensibilities and conscience and persuade her change to her mind.
We sit.
I guess this thing of having a pregnant woman in this dirty little room is gnawing at their insides. Or not.
Then one of them suddenly says, “madam, you can leave.”
The madam says, “I cannot go and leave my husband here.”
“Ah, you pay his fine and you will both be on your way.”
“But I don’t have any money,” the madam says.
“Too bad, then sit there with him!”
And that’s the end of it. No one is released.
The cops who arrested us and did not bother flashing their police IDs and chose instead to masquerade as passengers announce that they are leaving, going back to the street to fight more crime.
And no doubt they would soon be coming with more passengers arrested for “boarding a kombi at an undesignated pick up point.”
The impoverished male cop returns and tells us we can wait for another superior cop who is the only one who can release us at this stage without paying any fines.
But I have had it up to my butt.
Now, all the cops have left and we have been left under the watch of a female cop who has just arrived.
A guy arrested in another kombi, noticing that this female cop is a Ndebele, starts sucking up to her, patronising her even.
He doesn’t understand how a Ndebele woman can just stand and look when other Ndebeles are being unfairly treated.
Look at this pregnant woman, the man says, what if something worse than “boarding a kombi at an undesignated pick up point” happened to her right here in this room considering the state she is in, what would you have to say for yourself?
The cop blushes and gives the tired line that “what can I do? I am not the one who arrested her.”
And that is the end of it.
I whisper to the wife to tell the cop we are paying the fine and leaving this dump.
And what does she say? “Why didn’t you say this already!”
Yeah right, we thought, rather naively, we would only be “warned and cautioned!”
We pay the fine and walk out to the bustling streets of Bulawayo CBD and smell freedom.
The other ‘prisoners’ and the young female foreigner?
Well, I don’t know but am pretty certain they were released without paying fine.
