Six men were fighting on Todosija Paunov Street in Kočani, right next to the police station. Not in some far-flung neighbourhood where a patrol takes half an hour to arrive, but a few steps from the building the police are supposed to keep public order from.

The fight happened on 15 August at 19:15. Four men were detained - Ž.V. (22), J.V. (19) and M.V. (47), all from Kočani, plus I.A. (46) from the village of Banica near Strumica. According to the official statement, the brawl followed an earlier argument, and the detained men were charged with disturbing public order and peace.

But the number that matters in this story is not four detained. It is six people brawling outside a police station - and the question of how long it took before anyone came out of that building.

Footage of the incident travelled across social media first; the confirmation from the institutions came afterwards. That order is neither accidental nor new: the citizen with a phone was faster than the official channel again.

Here is the part worth noticing: the official statement says that in order to fully clarify the incident and establish all circumstances and any failures in the response, the Department for Internal Control, Criminal Investigations and Professional Standards will be involved, along with the Uniformed Police Department. In other words - they will also be checking what the officers were doing while six men fought on their doorstep.

A promise of internal review is easy to write into a press release. Seeing the result of one is harder. How many announcements about „establishing any failures” have ever ended with a published finding an ordinary citizen can actually read?

If accountability stops at the four men detained, this stays one more local incident. If it reaches the uniforms that were closest to it, then the statement meant something.