< strong>Boys running into fights in the malls are not harmless moths. Another scourge has multiplied in the hospitable environment of police indifference towards the so-called “petty hooliganism”.
How many times have you seen the police appear at such scenes and calm down the raging thugs? I have no personal recollection of anything similar in Bulgaria.
This is what Ivo Injev commented.
I have seen how the police act in other countries. I have only been to America twice in my life, and for no more than a few days. But I have twice witnessed appeasement actions by uniformed men. Both times in New York.
It could be a coincidence, but I saw a man kicking over garbage cans at “Central station”. I instinctively followed the implications. In an instant, a two-man police patrol appeared on the scene. They pressed the aggressor firmly and took him out of my sight.
On a central avenue in the city, I heard the screeching of tires and witnessed another movie-like scene. A police car blocked the road of a car. The policemen who jumped out quickly opened the doors of the blocked vehicle, pulled out a man, spread him across the road and in seconds the contents of his pockets were on display.
Something similar, not to say “more interesting”, I saw at an intersection on a busy central shopping street in West Berlin in the early 1990s. My peripheral vision registered two young men in t-shirts running at a trained pace in a certain direction (one had an earring, which I found unusual for a policeman, as he turned out to be). They overtook a man and without explanation twisted his arms so that his legs dangled from their grip. They took it as a traffic jam object.
From the comments of passers-by, I understood that a woman reported harassment and the perpetrator was arrested.
Someone will say (from those on duty who squat on the blog to refute and insult me) that I am trying to flatter the Americans and the Germans. But last year I also noticed something in Spain that cannot be seen in our country. The look! My wife and I especially looked at each other and began to observe what the policemen there looked like, male and female. Up to one, they were like advertising faces of the institution: slim, athletic, neat (on my author's photo). We didn't see a single tripe, although we really looked carefully to make sure it wasn't a fluke.
Decades have passed since the incidents I have witnessed. But I have not yet seen anything like this in our country, although, as we know, vandalism by aggressors with hooligan behavior is something that happens quite often in a big city like Sofia.
I have noted many times that when the state wants to, it can be very effective in prosecuting offenders. Reference: the officers who pop up in seconds to fine you if you've parked illegally. But if they beat them (or threaten to fight, as has happened to me many times for political reasons) help is nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps it would have been useful to dispose of a dangerous person if there were police nearby on the blvd. “Black Peak” in Sofia, when a guy threatened to slaughter me (because he loved Russia). Should I have checked myself to see if he was really carrying a knife that he was threatening on the street? Today me, tomorrow someone else.
I looked around, but there was no one to complain to (I'm not saying there should have been police officers around, but it wouldn't have been bad…). Common sense forced me to keep quiet about his threat. The would-be killer walked away victorious.
The perversion of the situation with the unpunished rampage of bullies and violent people of all kinds is especially great in Bulgaria, which is the champion in the number of police officers per capita in the EU. The statistics are disputed by trade unionists and other interested parties, but the facts speak for themselves: people do not feel safe, and nothing demonstrates this fact better than the brazenness with which hooligans play off their impunity in broad daylight in the busiest places .
Why? Because they rely on their experience that they will not again meet resistance from those whose salaries we pay to guarantee our safety, at least on the street.