In a letter submitted to the prosecutor’s office at the beginning of this year, residents of Iwiny accused three young men. The neighbors wrote about the men disturbing public order and the nighttime quiet, holding drug- and alcohol-fueled binges, and, above all, intimidation and threats to take their lives. All the hooligans named had been convicted before. One of them had already been accused by other people of making criminal threats.
After the case was reported to the prosecutor’s office and an article was published in our newspaper, the man probably became frightened of the consequences and left Iwiny for his grandmother’s home in Bolesławiec. After he moved away, peace prevailed. It lasted about three weeks. The wheels of justice turned so slowly that the young man got bored at his grandmother’s. He returned to the family estate because it did not look as if any punishment awaited him.
Slow Justice
Irena submitted the letter accusing the man on behalf of the intimidated residents. She was the only person on the estate who decided to stand up to the hooligans. The prosecutor’s office ordered the police to collect evidence. Questioning several witnesses took them almost two months. The materials were handed over to the prosecutor’s office in the second half of March. Around the same time, Irena received threatening text messages: “You’re totally f***ed, your days are numbered, I’ll take you to the forest in a plastic bag,” some anonymous person wrote to the woman. Irena reported this to the police. Her statement and a request to prosecute the perpetrator were accepted. The prosecutor’s office and the police have been investigating the matter for a second month.
Irena has very specific suspicions about who sent her these text messages, and the police know who had previously been accused by other people of making criminal threats. But the prosecutor patiently waits for the operators to provide the necessary information about the number from which the text was sent. Nobody is in any particular hurry to press the operators, and they have no specified deadline for providing the data. Fortunately, Irena is still alive.
In April, the prosecutor’s office discontinued the case against the three hooligans from the estate who had been accused by neighbors of threatening to kill them. Regina Haniszewska reported that the evidence collected during the interviews differed from the contents of the letter submitted to the prosecutor’s office.
So Different They Don’t Fit in Your Head
The residents say one thing about the situation on the estate, while the police and prosecutor officially say something entirely different. In the prosecutor’s assessment, this is a neighborhood conflict, mainly involving disturbances of the nighttime quiet and public peace. The police say that the neighbors first call to complain, but when the police arrive, none of them wants to cooperate and nobody gives an official statement against those accused of causing disturbances. And without official statements, the case cannot proceed.
Irena, who has the courage to speak about the situation, claims that the residents are still being intimidated and terrorized by hooligans who now feel completely unpunished. She says that when she reported a disturbance of the quiet to the police before the holidays, by calling 112, the duty officer first warned her that she would receive a fine if it was a false call. And she cannot understand how the case was discontinued.
“We suffered for several years,” she says. “Finally I stood up to them, and what happened to me? I’m fed up with a bunch of bastards ruling me, insulting me, and holding binges right under my nose. They have never worked anywhere, yet they have cars and can afford alcohol and drugs. They respect nobody. Once they covered a shop with mud because the owner refused to sell to them on credit. They threatened him. But apparently he hired some bald guys who knew how to punish them properly. I can’t afford bald guys, so I went to the police. I was stupid.”
It was not so much stupidity as excessive courage that got Irena into trouble. In her statements against the hooligans, she says, she stated that she had the courage and was not afraid to stand up to them. She said this in the context of showing the aggressors that not everyone was afraid of them. The prosecutor concluded that Irena was not very afraid of the hooligans, which apparently meant that they were not all that frightening. And the case was closed.
Lucky Devils
The accused men moved from the apartment block to a so-called pigsty belonging to one of them, who was known as a lucky devil. And they still, Irena claims, rule the estate. It is just a little quieter in the block. They still drive cars without licenses, and although they do not earn money, they can afford both fuel and parties.
Apparently there is a chop shop in the pigsty and shed behind the block. Neighbors see the men leaving something there and collecting something. Everyone who uses the pigsty has been convicted of theft. They are the next generation after the car thieves from this estate, who are now serving sentences. The police know them and have files on them.
At the beginning of March, the neighbors noticed a large car pull up to the shed. The men were loading something into it. One of the neighbors called the police. Everyone was certain that the thieves would be caught red-handed. The police checked the suspicious vehicle. It was carrying car-suspension components. After checking them in the National Police Information System, it turned out that the parts were not stolen. “They must be in league with the police. Although I don’t know that and don’t suspect it, what else can one think about all this?” Irena rhetorically wondered about the good fortune of her young neighbors.
You’re Totally F***ed
The situation on Osiedle II is not easy. Most of the people in conflict are related to one another. It is difficult to make sense of such a dispute. Although one might expect the police and prosecutor to be able to do so.
Irena is, to put it mildly, no diplomat. She grew up in a difficult environment and does not mince her words when she gets angry. She does not have much sympathy for police officers either. That must be acknowledged. She approaches them with considerable distance and reserve. Despite this, she seeks support at the police station.
She does not trust or like the officers from Warta, but she speaks well of the police officers from the District Police Headquarters in Bolesławiec. “One day I went there and asked for some intelligent police officer who would listen to me,” she recounts. One of the investigators saw her, but even so, the prosecutor handed the case she reported over to police officers in Warta.
Looking at this case from a human perspective, it is obvious that the hooligans have won. Now they have the law on their side as well. The police and prosecutor handled the residents’ case in Iwiny in accordance with all procedures and with exceptional correctness. But when recording statements and collecting evidence, they apparently failed to notice that the case concerned people, not indifferent paragraphs immune to harm and logical in their interpretation. And as in the text Irena received from the anonymous sender, who will probably never be identified by the prosecutor’s office, the victim is usually totally f***ed. One can only hope that she does not end up in a forest in a plastic bag.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)