Chin’ono: ZRP Among World’s Most “Useless” Police Services

Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has described the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) as one of the most ineffective police services in the world.

He was responding to a ZRP statement saying it had not issued any official press release on the alleged assailants of Douglas Coltart.

A fake ZRP press statement had circulated on social media regarding the attack on Coltart. The statement claimed the alleged assailants, Luckmore Gapa and Nicholas Hamadziripi, could not be arrested because of their close links to senior political figures.

In a post on X, Chin’ono asked why the suspects had not been arrested, given that Coltart was violently attacked on camera and the alleged assailant had been identified.

Wrote Chin’ono: “Surely, the Zimbabwe Republic Police, you have proved yourselves to be one of the most useless police services in the world. Senior Zimbabwean lawyer Doug Coltart is violently attacked in front of television cameras.

“The incident is captured live on camera and broadcast around the world. His phone was stolen in full view of the public.

“The whole world sees the phone being grabbed from him, sees the suspect, and the suspect is known.

“Reports and widely circulated videos have identified the alleged suspect as Luckmore Gapa.

“Yet you fail to arrest him, even in a pretentious way. You do not even pretend to investigate or act.

“The suspect is freely moving around Zimbabwe as if nothing happened, and yet you expect citizens to take you seriously as a professional law enforcement institution. You have become a complete joke.

“Even in brutal dictatorships elsewhere, authorities at least pretend to uphold the law when an incident so public and embarrassing takes place.

“But you are so compromised, so captured by ZANU-PF, that you cannot even maintain the basic appearance of professionalism or impartiality.

“What message are you sending to ordinary Zimbabweans when a violent attack, witnessed live by the entire world, produces no visible action from the police?

“You are effectively telling citizens that political affiliation determines whether the law applies or not. That is not policing. That is the collapse of public trust and the collapse of the rule of law. Shame on you.

“You have effectively become a ZANU-PF militia service used to arrest, harass, and persecute anyone perceived to be against ZANU-PF. That is what you have essentially become.

“You have ceased to function as a professional national police service that protects all citizens equally under the law.

“People no longer have confidence in you. I have read countless stories of Zimbabweans who experience serious criminal incidents at their homes and do not even bother to call the police because that is how useless and ineffective you have become in the eyes of the public.

“Citizens now believe that unless a matter is political or linked to protecting powerful people, you either will not act or you simply do not care.

“A police service that loses the trust of ordinary citizens has already collapsed morally, even before it collapses institutionally.

“The tragedy is that Zimbabweans fund your salaries through their taxes, yet many no longer believe you exist to protect them.”