Arrested and harassed for trying to earn a living

It had all the hallmarks of a hardcore police operation: the ringing of sirens, and overzealous blue-uniformed police officers leaping from a convoy of cars and vans – right in front of a busy Kempton Park butchery. Their target?

An elderly woman selling vegetables to the public.

Upon spotting an approaching police convoy, the woman ran into the butchery to mingle among other shoppers, temporarily evading arrest while the officers confiscated her vegetables from her makeshift stand, stationed next to a pavement.

The police then went into the butchery and dragged the woman outside, before she was handcuffed and bundled into the back of a police van.

Amid the unfolding drama, I reached out for my cellphone to video the incident. Within a minute of me getting ready to focus and pressing the video button, a police officer rushed to me, demanding I hand him my cellphone, which I refused.

“Give me the phone now. Are you a journalist? Colleagues, we have a journalist here,” he shouted.

Like a hunting pack of wolves, seeing a victim in the bush, I was soon surrounded by police officers, who asked that I identify myself.

My biggest concern was that my attempted videoing of the incident was disturbed by the policeman.

Upon producing my press card, one officer requested the State of Disaster permit which allows essential workers like journalists to carry out their job without hindrance.

“I know all journalists here, but I do not know you. Did you come here to buy or to carry out your work as a journalist?” said the police officer.

“You cannot be here as a shopper and a journalist at the same time.”

I responded: “I am here to buy meat, but I am now doing both because I am in the middle of a breaking story. Wherever I am, I am at work because of the nature of the job.”

I was asked to hop into a police vehicle and driven in a convoy to my apartment – about two kilometres away from the butchery – to fetch my permit.

Escorted in a police convoy, I was then accompanied to my apartment, where I showed them the permit.

Concerned neighbours, some peeping through windows, some watching from balconies, did not know what to make of the police drama until they saw me being released, with the convoy speeding off with the arrested street vegetable vendor.

The speed and zeal with which police carried out my arrest and that of the street vendor, made me think about how we would be living peacefully in a crime-free South Africa, had the cops nabbed a hardcore criminal.

What a morning!

– brians@citizen.co.za

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