Only Two Police Officers Were Sent to Arrest a Dangerous Criminal. Why?

In May 2022, two police officers were sent to arrest Krzysztof S., who, by court decision, was to serve a prison sentence of several years. During the unsuccessful attempt to arrest him, Krzysztof S. attacked the officers and acted aggressively; he wrested a firearm from one of them, fired a shot and escaped. He was not caught until after a manhunt lasting several days. A post appeared online describing what the unsuccessful police arrest in Milików looked like.

A year earlier, in April 2021, during the prime minister’s visit to Bolesławiec, after Mateusz Morawiecki had left the city, more than 20 officers approached a group of seven peacefully disposed members of the Women's Strike to check their identities. That would mean three officers for each person from the Women's Strike.

We asked the police spokesperson on what grounds the police had decided to send so many officers to such a small group. Anna Kublik-Rościszewska replied:

The increased number of uniformed officers resulted from preventive security measures.

When we explained that these more than 20 police officers had surrounded several people at a time when the prime minister had already been gone from Bolesławiec for almost an hour and that this had taken place more than one and a half kilometres from the site of the prime minister’s visit, and asked why this had happened, we received the terse response: that was the decision of the security commander.

Who is the security commander? It probably refers to the commander of ad hoc or preventive security—the police officer or head of the Police organizational unit with territorial jurisdiction over the location of special events.

The spokesperson added that, regarding the unsuccessful operation involving the two officers sent to Krzysztof S., the officers had acted on the basis of an order concerning the methods and forms of police escorts and transfers (in other words, once again a dry, terse statement that explains nothing).

Observing the police forces committed to both operations, one might conclude that citizens who dislike the policies of the Law and Justice government are considered more dangerous by the Polish police than a burglar, and that more officers are sent to deal with them. At least that is how it turned out in Bolesławiec.