Shocking brutality of Serbian municipal police!!! (Photo + Video 18+)

“I expect that you will change the look of cities, and that we will change Serbia for the better, making it more orderly and better organized, and that the cities will be more suitable for decent people and that they will live better in them.”

These are the words of Serbian former president Boris Tadić, which he said at the ceremony for founding municipal police in 2010. After seven years, it’s seems that municipal police, hasn’t fulfilled its purpose and our expectations. Only a few months after starting their work, municipal police began to build the image that is today recognizable by: punching people in the public transportation, because they don’t have a ticket, preventing journalists from doing their job and civil activists without any legal basis, or arresting women and pining them down on the floor because they sale on the street.

In these days public is shocked because of the last incident, when over-reaction of municipal policemen caused Vladimir Marinković having a heart attack, and losing his life. He was also selling watermelon at marketplace without a proper permit, and didn’t pay his spot. Citizens are shocked about this incident and they demands prosecution of two communal policemen, they also demands resignation of their Chief Risto Nikolic. Requests goes to the forbidding of Municipal Police. This tragic event made us remember the previous incidents in which municipal policemen abuse their powers and questioned the purpose of their existence – to help citizens.

Since from the beginning in late 2010, nine incidents have been reported in the media. First one, was the case of passengers without the ticket (his name is Dragan Čimbaljević). The public was instantly outraged, because it surfaced on the social media, thanks to the fellow passengers who recorded it all with his phone and put it on YouTube. He was beaten by a municipal policeman because he refused to leave the bus.

Another incident that came to the public was when the municipal policemen beat the twelve-year-old boy, later claiming that they did it in self-defense.

At the end of 2015, near "Savanova" restaurant, municipal policemen used physical force to prevent journalist from making reportage, about the abuse of public land, given to private investors. At that time, citizen ombudsman of Serbia Saša Janković responded, and found that there was no legal basis for this. However, just one month after the incident, in order to prevent the journalist of internet magazine "Krik" from asking the question which were addressed to mayor of Belgrade Sinisa Mali, who was found responsible of illegal demolition of private property in Hercegovačka street for building Belgrade Water Front, municipal policemen tookthe camera and erased all the material. Interesting fact is that in this incident Nikola Ristic current chief of the municipal police, also participated.

These are just some examples of overstepping the authority and illegal conduct of the Communal Police. New images and testimonies are placed on social networks almost daily. Since the last incident at the Vidikovac Market, among the sellers we have recently talked with, there is an uproar, because, they say, they are not sure what else they can expect from communal policemen.

In the last year, city leaders have often announced that Belgrade will receive another 1,000 communal police officers, and the realization of that plan began in May when 15 new workers were admitted.

In one of the sessions, Balša Božović, a member of the Democratic Party in the Assembly of the City, opened a discussion on the attitude of the Communal Police to the citizens, and on that occasion said:

The attitude of the Municipal Police to the citizens of Belgrade today can be described as fear and humiliation. The idea behind forming Communal police in the past was the idea to make Belgrade more regulated and transform it into a city where the procedures were followed, which is totally different idea from a current one. All the money invested in them on the other side is saved at the expense of regular police living in misery, which does not have the means to work and which is less and less on the streets of the capital. The attitude of the Communal Police towards his citizens has proved to be unworthy in several times, and because of that, as well as because of refusing to cooperate with the protector of the citizens, we demand the dismissal of Nikola Ristic, Chief of Staff - said Bozovic.