The Trouble Begins (Part II)

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*When I wrote this next section in my journal, it took up 11 pages. I’ll spare you all the details and focus on the bigger events. I’m also leaving out most personal thoughts/impressions as this is a public blog and the situation is still unfolding. Also, I assure you I am not being at all dramatic when I say that I need to protect certain people, so I’ve not used their names.*
As we walked down the main street, we came to a police roadblock of sorts. There were rocks in the street and officers wearing orange vests stood in the middle of the road. A bystander mentioned that someone in town had been shot. Though we weren’t sure if he was right, as there had been no earlier word of violence, we saw police move the rocks to the side of the road. A minute later, an ambulance roared by. After that, the police let us proceed down the road. Soon thereafter, we came upon an official police roadblock and stopped. We were standing as a group when a female officer, who appeared to be the one in charge, started to shepherd us back. I turned to walk back up the road when I heard her yell, “What are you doing there? You with the camera!” I looked over and saw Dave with his hands up, a camera in his left hand. He had been walking around with it out, though he hadn’t taken a picture (a fact he verbally repeated). A scuffle ensued as other officers tried to grab the camera. Dave was told he’d have to go to the police station, and we were pretty much all herded along. He kept repeating that he was fine with going to prove that there were no pictures on it.
A Police Mobile Service officer, armed with a rifle, brought up the rear, and asked Isaac, who was at the end of our line, why he was going along. Isaac responded that he was with us as he was seemingly texting on his phone. Inside the station, the same armed officer immediately said something to Isaac about removing his hat when he entered the station. With a slight scowl, Isaac slowly removed his cap. (Thoko, thinking quickly, took Dave’s hat off his head.) The officer then slapped Isaac in the face. He was stunned at first, we all were, then the shouting started. I have no idea what was going on, because the only English spoken was Isaac saying at one point, “What did I do?”
Two large police officers grabbed him and started dragging him toward the courtyard. The rest of us were also pushed in that direction. Once there, the two cops threw Isaac onto the dirt ground and for a minute, I thought we were about to witness a Rodney King scene. Instead, the officers picked him up, dragged him to the corner of a room, kicked his legs out from under him, at which point he landed on a chair. The rest of us were not-so-kindly escorted into the same room. Thoko was pushed, and there’s a chance Dave was as well. There was so much commotion as Isaac started to cry, having been hit and pushed around, officers were yelling in Chichewa, and Mindy and Dave were asking them not to hurt him. Thoko and Alice sat down in chairs and Thoko instructed me to do the same (this order apparently coming from the police). I have NO idea what prompted it, but suddenly the officers started to drag Isaac out of the room. He was either yelling in pain or fear or saying something in Chichewa, Dave was trying to hold onto him, not wanting him to be separated from us, but the police prevailed. Mindy turned to the older, calmer female officer who had Dave’s camera and stayed in the room with us and demanded that she ensure they wouldn’t hurt him.
The female officer and a plain-clothes male one then started to look through the pictures. Another plain clothes officer, with an attitude that suggested he out-ranked the other two, sat in the chair behind Dave, across from Thoko and Alice. I have many choice words for that particular officer, none of them kind. The next part of the process takes place over the course of thirty minutes:
-We call a’mai (host mother), who was in a meeting. She begins to call people she knows within the force. She tells us to stay at the station.
-The two officers look through Dave’s camera and, finding nothing, hand the camera back.
-Dave hands the camera to Thoko, who looks through the pictures, at which point the cops once again confiscate it. They have Dave and Mindy (it was her camera) delete the picture Dave took of a rock (one that had been used in the unofficial roadblock we encountered).
-Sounds of someone crying out would occasionally reach us as we sat and waited. I for one couldn’t tell if it was Isaac or one of the other guys we had seen who was brought in “for questioning.”
-The “confident” cop says, “Obstructing a police officer. That’s a good charge for him.” At first I didn’t think he was talking about Isaac, since it made no sense given the situation, but I later learned he must have been.
-They take down our information then tell us we should wait just outside the station building, at “the shed.” It’s an open area with a roof and cement benches.
See Part III.

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