IT is normal to see a person running away from a police man when he is being pursued after committing a crime.
But it is abnormal for a police man running away from a mob chasing him after he commits an offence.
It is even absurd when a police man is in uniform and is running towards citizens to seek help from them when an angry youthful mob wants to mete out instant justice on him.
Recently, I was at one of the drinking places in Ndola’s North rise residential area when two young men stormed the bar laughing their lungs out.
“Ngateba pirate taxi driver balya babili, balya babwana nga baciboma sana kuli balya abaice. Ba bwana bacibutukila kuli ba pirate taxi driver ukuti babafweko,”
(“If it were not for those two pirate taxi drivers, that police man would have been beaten by those youths. He ran to the pirate taxi drivers to be rescued”),  said one of the two men who had stormed the bar, laughing heartily.
As an eavesdropper, I was interested.
A police officer running towards pirate taxi drivers to be rescued!
Why did the youthful mob want to beat the police officer?  I wanted to know.
As I was wondering about this, I heard one of the men comment that what the officer had done was wrong.
I had finished drinking my beer and I was about to leave the bar, but because my ears itched to hear what had happened between the police officer and the youths, I decided to stay a little bit longer and hoped the men would say what really happened.
I got to the counter and bought myself a Castle Lite and walked to the table where the two men were seated and pretended not to have been interested in them.
Then one man who was seated close to them asked:”Ninshi bacilafwaila ukuma kapokola abaice.”(Why did the youths want to beat the police man?)
One of the men took a sip from his beer. He cleared his throat before he started explaining what had really happened in one of the streets in North rise.
According to the man who was narrating the incident which happened around 14.00 hours in a named street, the police officer had a girlfriend there and he had gone to pick her but he lost his cool when she took long in coming out.
As he was impatiently waiting in his car for her to come out from one of the yards, a plastic ball kicked by one of the children who were playing football at one of the houses hit the windscreen of his car.
A child of about 13 years came out of the wall-fenced house to  pick the ball which flew over the wall-fence and landed on the windscreen of the vehicle which was parked beside the road.
When the police man saw the child, he got out of the vehicle and apprehended him shaking him violently.
“You are very stupid. Supposing you smashed the windscreen, was your father going to buy one? ,” the man said the police man yelled at the child.
Seeing that the man who had grabbed him was a police officer, the child cried and said it was not him who had kicked the ball but his friend.
“The police man was very annoyed and slapped the child,” explained the man.
He said it was when the child started crying wildly and pleading with the policeman to let him go when the youths from the neighbourhood who had seen what had happened teamed up and approached the police officer.
“The youths who were heavily muscled and looked like wrestlers or boxers grabbed the police officer and roughed him up and accused him of being a very cruel policeman.
“One of them tried to hit him, but the officer took to his heels and headed towards where the pirate taxi drivers had parked their vehicles waiting for commuters shouting for help,” explained the man.
He said the youths gave chase to the police officer, but quick action by the pirate taxi drivers saved him from the beatings.
The  man said one of the pirate taxi drivers who was very well known by the youths in the area pleaded with the youths not to beat the officer who was in uniform because it was an offence and if they were arrested, they would be sentenced to jail.
He said it was at this point that one of the pirates asked the officer what the problem was and the officer explained that the boys were playing football at one of the wall-fenced houses and the ball hit the windscreen and it was for this that he was annoyed.
“It was a plastic ball which could not even smash the windscreen. Worse still, the boy that the police man slapped is only a kid.
“What kind of a police officer is he? He is supposed to show kindness to children,” said the man.
Then his friend added his words.
He said it was not the first time that the police officer was in the North rise area.  He was there almost every day because there was a girl  there he had an affair with.
“The youths said this was not the first time the man had come to the area. It was not because he was angry with the boy who hit the ball which hit the windscreen of his vehicle. He was angry because the girl he was following there did not show up on time,” narrated the young man.
He said the youths were also bitter because the man was coming to grab the girl in their area and on top of that, beating children who did not know anything.
“We know why you come here. You come to get our girls.  But we will not let you start beating our children just because you are disappointed with  your girlfriend,” the youths claimed, as they were charging towards the police officer.
He said the pirate taxi operators knew the officer who had just been transferred from another Copperbelt town to Ndola and they rescued him.
The man these young men were narrating this story to shook his head disappointedly.
“People are supposed to run to police officers for protection because they are the law enforcers. If police officers start behaving like law breakers, where will people run to?” asked the man.
In recent times, there have been cases in which police officers have been harassed by citizens concerning different issues.
At one time I was in Sakania and I experienced an occasion where a mini bus driver accidentally elbowed a police officer’s hat which dropped to the ground and he was slapped for that.
Commuters of the mini bus complained that it was not deliberate that the driver did that, but the police officer did not take it that way.
“Police officers are supposed to be cool and understanding. If they behave like ordinary citizens, people will lose confidence in them, “said one of the commuters.
I thought he was right.
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