The snow has barely melted, but we still remember how we battled the city buried under snow in January. At the request of friends, Alfred Banaś cleared the pavement and the roadside beside their property on Mazowiecka Street. On this one-way street, snowploughs had created two piles of snow on the pavements. To make it easier for cars to park, the man decided to move the snow from the driveway and roadside onto the pile on the other side of the street. As he was laboriously digging away the snow, a Municipal Police patrol arrived. They had received information that the man was covering the opposite pavement with snow.

Fragment ulicy Mazoweickiej, którą odśnieżał pan AlfredFragment ulicy Mazoweickiej, którą odśnieżał pan Alfred • Alfred Banaś

Alfred Banaś showed the officers that he was putting snow onto a pile previously made by a snowplough. The officers stated that the pavement on the other side of the street was not being covered with snow. Banaś nevertheless pointed out to them that the intervention was pointless. – When I began expressing my doubts and questioning the necessity and legitimacy of the intervention, says Alfred Banaś, one of the officers then demanded that I describe in detail and precisely the activities I was carrying out while clearing the snow. And that I discuss the snow-clearing technique. He wanted me to describe exactly how I used the tools, the shovel and the electric handheld snow blower. I found that humiliating, our reader adds.

Alfred Banaś decided to file a complaint about the patrol’s unjustified intervention with Municipal Police Commander Emil Zając. According to Banaś’s account, the visit to the commander was even more unpleasant than the meeting with his subordinates.

Banaś presented his allegations to the commander and described the entire incident. During the conversation, he said that it seemed to him that the officers had exceeded their authority and behaved improperly. He received an answer that he considered impolite.
– You are absolutely right, Commander Emil Zając reportedly replied to Banaś’s allegations, then paused and, after a moment of silence, added – that it seems so to you…
The commander deemed Alfred Banaś’s complaint unfounded.

Disappointed and offended by this response, the man sent a letter to Mayor Piotr Roman, the commander’s direct superior. In it, he described the entire incident and demanded that the mayor discipline his subordinates and draw official consequences against them, as well as recognize the Municipal Police intervention as unjustified.

– The whole matter would never have happened, says Alfred Banaś, if the officers had arrived and, seeing that I was not covering the pavement with snow but was trying to get rid of the snow as best I could, driven away without intervening. Sweat was running down my back, I was trying to do something useful, and I was punished without justification for it. I resent the officers for behaving arrogantly instead of helping and treating residents with respect, and there is no one to punish them for it.

Alfred Banaś stresses that he is far from condemning outright the idea of establishing the Municipal Police and its activities. But he believes that under the Act on Municipal Police, officers are obliged to be polite toward residents. – The Act obliges officers to be courteous and friendly in their contacts with citizens, says Banaś. – And their behaviour was unpleasant for me. If I remain silent about this matter and do not respond, and someone else remains silent about another arrogant incident involving the officers, it will become the norm. This must be prevented.

Municipal Police Commander Emil Zając believes that the intervention was justified. – In the past, Mr Alfred Banaś had already filed a complaint about the actions of Municipal Police officers, and it proved unfounded, our Municipal Police commander informs us. – The complaint from January this year concerns an intervention by officers who went to check a telephone report. The caller informed the Municipal Police that a man clearing snow from the pavement was, in the process, covering the pavement on the other side of the street with snow. The actions taken in this matter complied with generally applicable regulations, as well as with the internal procedures of the Municipal Police in Bolesławiec.

The complaint filed by Alfred Banaś with the mayor is being handled, in accordance with the regulations, by the district prosecutor in Bolesławiec.

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