The Police chief, Martin Okoth Ochola, has commended police officers who conduct themselves in a professional manner and with restraint in the course of executing their duties.
As a result, the police chief pledged to continue pushing for an end to the use of force in line with the directive from President Yoweri Museveni, by issuing circulars encouraging officers to resolve incidents before needing to turn to a deadlier force, involving the use of a gun.
Ochola’s salutation came after Uganda Police was ranked as the kindest police force in the world by the World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI).
“Following the most recent ranking of the Uganda Police Force as the “kindest police” in the World by WISPI, the IGP has come out to thank all officers who conducted themselves professionally, and with great restraint in the course of their duties,” a statement signed by the police spokesperson, Fred Enanga, said.
As part of global competitiveness where countries and organisations compete to blaze a trail in various fields of development and progress, internationally accredited think tanks launch indices annually and organizations such as UN adopt such indices.
WISPI was proposed by Dr Mamdooh Abdelmottlep and was designed and constructed by experts, researchers and scholars from different countries worldwide.
It is composed of indicators designed to be applied on 127 countries in collaboration with International Police Science Association (IPSA) and Australia- based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
The ranking measured the police’s reaction to the threats faced in the performance of their duties, Enanga pointed out.
“It included acts of provocation by the general public, for instance, a man who stoned officers on lawful duty, a traffic offender who got into a scuffle with the traffic officers in the North Kyoga Region during a stop and search operation,” he observed.
Enanga said there have been many other cases of unprovoked attacks applied on officers through punching, kicking, preventing or spitting at an officer, threats to officers during arrests, and gun grabbing among others.
“Just last week, our male officer was grabbed by the collar and another pinned to the wall, while manning the Court of Appeal offices at Twed Towers,” he stated.
The police publicist said the police administration was aware of the environment in which police officers operate, where violent actors engage in a whole range of unlawful and provocative behavior that prompts officers to defend themselves in a way that leads to use of force, including firing their weapons.
Fortunately enough, however, Enanga said police officers have time and again managed to de-escalate most of the violent situations and restored calm.
“We continue to renew our use of force policies and procedures, and we are exploring many options available to our frontline officers and supervisors without resorting to impact weapons or lethal force,” he said.
Enanga stressed that the police force has zero tolerance for inappropriate or excessive use of force, adding that all disturbing incidents of misconduct where officers used excessive force were fully accounted for in transparent disciplinary processes.
“Once again, we applaud our officers for their level of kindness and restraint. It is a huge win and we pledge to continue with our policing reforms and further review in totality, the circumstances that lead to interactions where force is used,” Enanga concluded.
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