Dumm-copf

Police the world over are sometimes characterised as being stupid (often with a farm animals name attached to the slur) ...

Pig With Grenade

Of course this is largely nonsense ... but just occasionally a police officer becomes the exception that proves the slur.

For instance on the 15th of December 2022, there was a large unexplained explosion .... actually described by the polish police as "a violent release of energy" ... (which is real PR talk if ever I saw it) ... in the police headquarters in Warsaw.

The incident occurred in the office of Police Commander in Chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk and left him injured and having to be hospitalised for observation, having suffered 'minor injuries'. Prosecutors were called in to investigate but were strangely coy, only admitting that it wasn't a terrorist attack.

However it soon got out that Mr Szymczyk had been on an official trip to the Ukraine from December 11 to 12 and upon leaving had been given a parting gift by one of Ukraine's heads of the Ukrainian emergency services .... the nature of the gift was not officially declared. 

Ukrainian 'Kostyor' Underbarrel Grenade Launcher.

But the Polish press didn't take long to sniff out that the 'gift' was in fact allegedly a grenade launcher (and with a live grenade) .... it took even less time for them to discover that the bungling cop had somehow set off the grenade inside his office. He was lucky to still be alive, and to have not injured anyone else apart from a civilian employee at the police headquarters, who was also injured, but did not need to be hospitalised.

After being released from hospital, police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk revealed that the Ukrainian 'gift' that had exploded, and left him hospitalised with minor injuries earlier in the week, had really been an anti-tank grenade launcher. He then admitted that there were in fact two 'used' grenade launchers, one of which had been turned into a loudspeaker, but insisted that he had been assured that both the weapons were safe.

Szymczyk told the press that “When I was moving the used grenade launchers, which were gifts from the Ukrainians, the explosion happened. The blast was intense. The force of the shot punctured the floor and damaged the ceiling.”

Well he would say that wouldn't he  ... but hey ho, that's the official story. The Polish ministry are reported to have asked the Ukrainian side to 'provide relevant explanations,' .... presumably, why there was a grenade provided with the launcher .... Kiev didn't provide a public explanation, but possibly asked why a Polish police officer took a grenade launcher as a gift (with a live grenade), and then had kept it in his office.

Being a dumb-copf can occur at any time and any place .... including the Ukrainian army it appears.

A 39 year old Ukrainian Major, Hennadiy Chastyakov, a close aide of the head of Ukraine's armed forces Valery Zaluzhny, was given presents from his colleagues which included live ammunition and hand grenades (why live weapons? only a Ukrainian military or Polish cop could answer). He had returned to his flat with the presents, and was opening them with his 13 year old son when the grenade exploded.

Apparently the boy had picked up the grenade and was fiddling with the ring pin ... his father grabbed it, but succeeded only in pulling it from the grenade which then exploded, killing Major Chastyakov, and leaving his son severely injured.

Investigations found another five grenades in the flat. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that they had been a gift from a colleague in the army. Two similar grenades were later found in a search of the colleagues home quarters, described as a colonel in the army .... who needs the Russians trying to kill you, with friends like these ...