The sun was dipping behind Harare’s skyline on Chinhoyi Street on the evening of April 17, 2017, casting long shadows over the bustling road.Mother, Patricia Dengezi, a street vendor, sat on a makeshift stool of cardboard boxes, cradling her one‑year‑old son, Lesley Chitanda, on her lap. She fed him from a packet of chips as the street throbbed with life — commuter omnibuses swerving for passengers, vendors calling out their goods, pedestrians hurrying home.
It was an ordinary moment in an ordinary evening. But within minutes, it would turn into a tragedy that would shatter Patricia’s life forever.
Without warning, three uniformed police officers stormed the street. They wielded batons and tyre spikes, moving with purpose toward a row of illegally parked commuter omnibuses. With loud clangs, spikes were thrown across the road, and the windscreen of one vehicle was smashed. Panic erupted.
Five or six kombi drivers, desperate to avoid arrest, swung into the wrong lane of the busy one‑way street. They accelerated into oncoming traffic. Horns blared. Screams pierced the air. Chaos spread instantly.
One driver, Munyaradzi Nyamaruru, swerved violently to avoid a collision. He lost control of his vehicle, mounting the pavement and striking Patricia and her son with devastating force.
The impact was catastrophic. Patricia was hurled to the ground, unconscious. Little Lesley was ripped from her arms and crushed beneath the vehicle. He died instantly.
Patricia woke days later in a hospital bed, battered with serious injuries to her back and leg. But the deeper wound was the loss of her child. Her joy and future had been obliterated.
“If the police had not thrown those spikes,” she later told the court, “Lesley would still be alive.”
Witnesses confirmed that police officers, realising the destruction they had caused, fled the scene, abandoning Patricia, her son’s lifeless body, and the wreckage.
What followed was an eight‑year battle for justice.
A vendor from a small village in Murehwa, Patricia took on not just the driver, but the vehicle owner, the insurance company, and the Zimbabwe Republic Police itself. The case was mired in constitutional challenges over the Police Act, lengthy delays, and the fact that the driver charged with culpable homicide had absconded.
But Patricia never gave up. She wanted answers, accountability, and recognition for her loss. She wanted her son’s death to matter.
Finally, in December 2024, her case went to trial. The courtroom was packed with lawyers representing the Commissioner General of Police and the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage. Patricia, supported by her friend and witness Sibongile Mazividza, relived the horror of that evening.
Eight Years for Justice: A Mother’s Battle After a Tragic Police Incident
“They threw the spikes and smashed the windscreen without any regard for the chaos it would cause,” Patricia testified. She described the panic, the deafening clang of spikes on the ground, and the terrifying sound of speeding vehicles in the wrong direction.
Mazividza corroborated Patricia’s account, adding that the police officers had fled the scene after realising the consequences of their actions.
The police defence argued that officers were enforcing traffic laws and could not have foreseen the drivers’ reckless escape.
But Justice Regis Dembure was unconvinced. In a landmark judgment, he condemned the officers’ actions as “unlawful, reckless and grossly negligent.”
“The violent, indiscriminate smashing of commuter omnibuses and the use of spikes in crowded streets during peak hours can never be justifiable,” Justice Dembure said. “Human life is sacrosanct.”
The court also criticised the police for failing to produce accident reports or witness statements — critical documents that had been destroyed, raising suspicions of a cover‑up.
Justice Dembure ruled that the police’s conduct had directly triggered the chain of events that killed Lesley. The harm was foreseeable and preventable. He held the Commissioner General of Police and the Minister of Home Affairs vicariously liable, ordering them to pay Patricia US$42,000 in damages, plus interest and legal costs.
While no sum could replace her son, the ruling offered Patricia a measure of justice and recognition of her suffering. Justice Dembure further warned police forces to adopt safer and proportionate methods:
“The police must take appropriate actions that give due regard to the possible dangers their operations may pose to the public.”
For Patricia, the judgment marked the end of a long, painful fight. It was a victory soaked in grief.
Her son’s absence would forever haunt her, but her case became a powerful warning about reckless policing — and a call for reform. As she left the courtroom, Patricia carried with her both a heavy sorrow and a fragile sense of purpose.
Her battle had been fought not only for Lesley but for every mother who might one day be spared the same agony.
Source- Herald
