Police Station Visit

For the next step in registering our organization, I, as the national representative, am required to obtain clearance from Interpol just to make sure that I am not an internationally wanted criminal. To do this, I had to have my fingerprints done and the only place to do that is at a police station. I was worried that this would be a time consuming ordeal, my colleague that was helping me called a friend who has a relative who works in the central police station in downtown Harare, and he was told it would be easy and take just five minutes. Instead it was a shocking experience.

We arrived at the sprawling complex and walked through hallways that stank intermittently of urine or antiseptic and eventually found our contact. Fingerprints are usually only taken on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-4 pm, so I was lucky to be getting in off-schedule. The first question our contact asked was whether we had fingerprint forms. Of course she didn’t ask my colleague this when the spoke on the phone, but only when we arrived in her office in person. We were not prepared and as it turns out, you have to buy the forms from stationary stores. They are not sold at the police station. So we went back to the car and drove to the largest stationary store in Harare and of course they were out. Someone overheard us asking and as we were getting into the car, a man approached the window and whispering something about fingerprints. Two forms quickly appeared, we paid a dollar and drove back to the police station and wound our way back through the sticking hallways.

We were asked to follow our contact through a semi-basement hallway that was lined with cells with ancient doors and then into another room to do the fingerprinting. We entered the small semi-basement office crowded with furniture and were asked to sit on the only bench. There were other people in the office that kept coming in and out as our contact searched for the fingerprinting equipment. As my eyes adjusted to the dingy surroundings, I suddenly saw the chair behind the desk closest to me move and saw that there were three men sitting on the floor. They were sitting under the desks and appeared to be trying to make themselves as small as possible and it dawned on me that they were in custody. Just then the door opened again and a tall thin man was thrust into the room. His face was soaked in sweat and at first I thought that he had been running because his breath was ragged. Then I saw that he was limping heavily and that he was actually crying, which is not something that a Shona man does. He was being yelled at by one of the guards, none of whom were in uniform. My colleague later told me that the four were accused of breaking into cars and that the officer was yelling “This is what happens when you don’t tell us who you are working with. Tell us how many cars you have broken into”. The injured man lay on the floor sobbing obviously in too much pain to sit on his injured hip and leg. When he complained that he had been beaten, the officer said, “You haven’t been beaten yet. Just wait to see what happens if you don’t tell us the truth”.

This all happened within just a few minutes and as the scene unfolded, my heart sank. Goosebumps appeared on my arms and I lowered my gaze not knowing where to look. I suddenly understood the smells that had accosted me in the hallways. Finally, the officer told our contact to get me out of there because he was trying to work. Still in shock at what I had just seen, I found myself back in the above-ground office where we had first met our contact. She finger-printed me and as she was completing the rest of the forms, I looked around the office and noticed the one thing on the wall and the only decoration in the barren office was a campaign sticker that read “100% Empowerment – Vote Mugabe”. I wandered who was empowered as I looked at the cheap broken shoes our contact was wearing.

As I sat waiting, another drama ensued in front of me. A man was in the office discussing something in Shona with another employee of the police department when we entered. The discussion continued unabated as we sat waiting. As they seemed to come to some conclusion the visitor said “tatenda” (thank-you), reached into his pocket and pulled out a one-dollar bill and laid it on the table. I was shocked but was much more alarmed when I later learned from my colleague the nature of their discussion. The man was telling the employee of the police department that there had been a shoot out and he had discharged his gun and was worried about it being traced back to him. He said he just shot in the air as a warning, but of course he wouldn’t be so worried about it if that were true. The employee told him that he needed to get the casings from the six shots he had fired so they couldn’t be traced back to his gun. The “tip” was then paid. Then the employee asked him who he worked with and the man casually answered, “the CIO”. This is the Central Intelligence Organization and is the most feared organization in Zimbabwe, yet he was openly discussing his situation.

The tip-taker then presented me with some soap so I could wash the ink off my hands. Our contact took me into the barren room next door where she poured water from a plastic bottle over my hands as I held them out the window. They normally wash hands in the semi-basement office I had been in, but they had decided that I shouldn’t be taken back there, as the officers were still busy. As I returned to the office I noticed a blackboard covered in writing with the heading “Crime Smart”. The only other word that jumped off the board at me was “corruption”. I wandered if they were teaching smart strategies for corruption.