EDITORIAL: WELL DONE OUR POLICE OFFICERS

WE had four major events in Harare on Saturday which attracted tens of thousands of people.

The high-profile league match between Scottland and Dynamos at Rufaro set the tone when it drew thousands of fans who filled Rufaro to capacity.

Then, the country’s top two musicians — Jah Prayzah and Winky D — turned on the volume with their performances at the Showgrounds and Alex Sports Club.

We then had the clash of the chanters at City Sports.

All these events attracted tens of thousands of people.

For us, what was refreshing is that these mass events, held on the same day, passed without any major incidents.

Some doomsday prophets had said that the big match between Scottland and Dynamos was likely to end prematurely and had predicted that it would be blighted by violent scenes.

We saw their messages on social media trying to set the stage for violence.

They put a lot of pressure on the referee and there were warnings that if the referee was to get any decision wrong then there would be chaos at Rufaro.

However, the real football fans proved them wrong and even on the occasion that the referee, who handled the game very well, made a questionable decision, there was an acceptance of his authority and an appreciation that this was a very tough job.

We did not see any missiles raining on the pitch when Scottland took the lead and, instead, we saw the Dynamos fans accepting their fate and then going behind their players to keep on fighting and keep on believing.

There were massive crowds at the three big musical shows in the capital later on Saturday evening.

There were no major incidents of violence which were recorded and for that we want to thank every one of the people who attended these shows for sticking to the script of enjoying themselves.

We understand that it was a huge effort for the police in Harare to ensure that all these four mass events went on smoothly and the safety of those who attended was guaranteed.

We know it’s not an easy task and we want to thank the police leadership for getting it right with their deployment and their troops, who were on the ground, for performing their duties with distinction.

We tend to overlook the good job which the police do, especially when we don’t have any major incidents at such mass events.

We tend to only criticise them when major incidents are reported.

We believe that we should praise our police chiefs and their officers when they pull it off and such major mass events go without any incidents being reported.

Our reporters were there at all these events and they said they saw many fine examples of good policing by our officers.

Yes, there are some bad apples within our police force but the majority of our officers are professionals who are dedicated to performing their duties in the best way possible.

It’s not easy to manage such huge crowds, especially on occasions where a lot of alcohol is being consumed.

Thank you to all our police officers who were part of the teams which managed these mass events.