The child’s father, who contacted us, told us about the incident. The six-year-old girl and her friend were playing in the courtyard at Rynek, where our reader lives. One of the girls’ grandfathers was looking after the children. The game involved colouring the pavement bricks and the façade with chalk. One of the neighbours did not like the children making a mess and playing in front of his entrance.
The reader lives about one hundred metres from the place where the girls were drawing. The outraged neighbour called the municipal police. The officers arrived to intervene. They asked one of the girls’ grandfathers for an explanation and wrote down his details in a notebook. The children became frightened by the intervention, convinced that their details were being recorded. His daughter told her father about the incident, and he immediately went to the municipal police headquarters to clarify the matter. In his letter to the editorial office, he wrote: “What I mainly wanted to find out was whether a child is allowed to draw with chalk on the pavement. The officers confirmed to me that children may draw with chalk on the pavement, and that they had not recorded the child’s details, although they took out a notebook and pretended to write them down. My accusations against the officers are these: first, why did the duty officer accept the report instead of explaining to the person who made it—as I was told—that children may draw with chalk on the pavement? Second, if the duty officer sent a patrol, why did the officers frighten the child by saying they were recording her details, instead of explaining once again to that man [zgłaszającego], that children may draw with chalk on the pavement?”
The reader also wonders whether people who report false problems should not be warned or punished. The child was deeply affected by her first contact with law-enforcement officers. The father wrote further in his letter: “I am certain that my daughter will remember this whole situation for a very long time and that, through their behaviour, the officers damaged the authority of the entire municipal police force. I would also add that, while clarifying the matter at the Municipal Police headquarters, I was with my daughter, who heard that children may in fact draw with chalk on the pavement and asked me: So why did they record my details? My daughter also promised me that if I received a fine on her behalf, she would give me all her money.”
Municipal police officers are required to record every intervention, and the notebook is their work log. If they do not intervene during a patrol, they must enter that nothing happened. When they arrived to intervene over the drawing on the pavement and façade, they first approached the adult supervising the girls—the grandfather of one of them.
– Officers not only have the right but also the duty to intervene and record interventions in their notebooks – explains Emil Zając, commander of the Municipal Police in Bolesławiec. – The fact that an officer is holding a notebook does not mean that they are recording someone’s details, particularly when it is a small child. We do not want to frighten children. We are supposed to help them. People should turn to us for help and intervention. The officers’ intention was to clarify the matter, not to frighten the little girl. During the conversation with the officers, the grandfather looking after the children said that he would clean up after them. And that was the end of the whole matter.
(information by Grażyna Hanaf)