epaselect epa08628658 Protesters prepare to attack police during clashes between the local community members and police forces, after it was alleged by the community that an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by the police, in Johannesburg, South Africa, 27 August 2020. Local residents of Eldorado Park community clashe with police forces after attacking the local police station alleging that they killed a 16 year old teenager, after he left his house to find food. EPA-EFE/KIM LUDBROOK
He was 16. He was disabled and couldn’t communicate with strangers. He was clutching a packet of biscuits he didn’t want other kids stealing. Now, Nathaniel Julius, the boy all the people in his Eldorado Park neighbourhood knew as “Lokkie”, is dead.
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Those neighbours, those family members, those friends, believe Lokkie was gunned down by a cop… probably because he couldn’t explain why he was hiding behind a vehicle (they say it was because he was protecting his biscuit stash). Eldos erupted yesterday in anger and people took to the streets to vent their rage about the police – not only the killing but the general way they get treated by the cops.
Now, the Independent Police Investigation Directorate has been called in to determine exactly what happened. And the cops, naturally, say they can’t comment until that investigation has been done. No such restriction applies, apparently, to the office of Gauteng Premier David Makhura.
It issued a statement calling on the community “not to speculate but to await the outcomes of the investigation”… but made its own, biased, position clear when it stated, as a fact, that Lokkie had been killed after being “caught in the crossfire” between “a gang” and the police.
Makhura’s office claimed the firefight occurred when police were investigating a “tip-off about stolen car parts”. It beggars belief that the office of the most senior politician in the province can make such a blatantly partial statement about something which is contested and is still under investigation. It smacks of a cover-up, or a clumsy attempt at public relations damage control.
That sort of attitude is only going to make matters worse with the community of Eldorado Park, who can be forgiven for feeling that they, and the Julius family, are unlikely to get justice from a system which has already made up its mind.
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