Yet another upsetting story about the police. A young chareidi was sitting on his porch in Meah Shearim uttered a disquieting word to the officers patrolling the street below. They decided to retaliate and pin a case on him. This took place two years ago before Pesach, at the very height of the Corona lock downs when Meah Shearim gained the brunt of police activity by entering the neighborhood every day to see if anyone was defying the prohibitions.
During one of their rounds, a group of rioters attacked the police who decided to find a scapegoat for their wrath. They zeroed on the young man sitting on his balcony, ran up to his apartment, dragged him until Rechov HaNeviim, where a police van wrote out a report with a 5,000 shekel fine, stating that it was given on the grounds of his refusal to disperse among the band of rioters since this was endangering public order. It should be remembered, that he was dragged from his balcony one flight up!
When the young man appealed to the court, it was countered with a charge in which the police wrote that he had participated in a forbidden public gathering in Meah Shearim and refused to leave. It omitted the 'negligible' fact that he had been in his home and was dragged from it by the police themselves. One can likely conclude that if the judge had to pass sentence on him, the fine would have been many times greater and might even have included a prison term.
To his good fortune, there was a security camera in his building which documented the police storming into it and later, dragging him with them outside. The lawyer who represented him showed the clip to the judge, on the grounds of which the young man was exonerated.
And how did the police react? "After the indictment was presented against the accused, his proxy presented witnesses testifying against the accused which he had not previously possessed. The prosecution demanded that the charge should be cancelled."
Is this normal or a hallucination? "To withdraw charges?" That is all? What should be done with a bunch of lying police? Will they continue to work at their jobs as if nothing happened, even after it was proven that they lied brazenly in a court? Is there room for such a despicable, nefarious bunch of hooligans to continue operating in the midst of a body appointed to be the guardians of the law?
This story did not even garner any attention with the media. After all, "it only involved a chareidi." So what if the police lied barefacedly? As it is, there is a lack of manpower in the police force. Are they expected to fire every lying police officer and end up importing police from Thailand?
