ZRP Refuse To Pay Shooting Victim's Medical Bills
The Zimbabwe Republic Police has exonerated from any wrongdoing one of their own who shot at moving vehicle in Chitungwiza last year, injuring a passenger in the process.
The injured passenger, Loveness Chiriseri last December filed a lawsuit demanding $17 000 after she incurred medical expenses from the gunshot wound. Police declined to pay.
Chirisei was then a law student who was travelling from Chitungwiza to Harare, boarded an unregistered Honda Fit, which was stopped at a roadblock resulting in the shooting.
In it’s response to Chiriseri’s lawsuit, the ZRP said:
There was no recklessness on the part of the police officer. He was deployed to check unmarked vehicles of different types and makes that had been terrorising innocent citizens of Zimbabwe. The vehicle plaintiff was in had no number plates and the driver failed to stop when asked to stop when instructed to do so.
Reasonable suspicion to the effect that the vehicle had been used in the commission of an offence cannot be discounted in these circumstances. If anything, the damages must be directed at the driver, who intentionally tried to evade lawful police instruction.
There was never any random and indiscriminate shooting, the shots were fired in the air, a warning which the driver refused to take note of, eventually, a shot aimed at the motor vehicle was fired, specifically to stop the motor vehicle.
