‘Long arm of the thugs’: Criminal police officers in uniform

With 21 police officials arrested for torture, murder and kidnapping and a sergeant detained for raping a child, in the past week, the long arm of the law is being turned into the long arm of thugs by some members.

While police brutality seemed to be a problem in South Africa, a number of factors such as frustration, trauma and crime-ridden communities often lead to violence, said police expert at Stellenbosch University Dr Guy Lamb.

“The situation depends on the context. It is often factors and environments in which police operate.

“You find this kind of abuse and violence happening in high-crime areas, where police are quite frustrated as violence becomes normalised in these communities. They get frustrated because they are trying to enforce the law, catch criminals … but crime is not getting better.

“In certain circumstances, a group of officers hold views that criminals or alleged criminals need to be punished – then you will often see concentrations of this kind of violence happening,” said Lamb.

And the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has turned up the heat on those in blue who abuse their power.

According to the Ipid 2020-21 annual report, their investigations into criminal police officers have exceeded their targets.

A total of 195 investigations of deaths in police custody were concluded, exceeding their target by 15 due to what Ipid said was prioritisation and weekly monitoring of the investigations.

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The Ipid exceeded their target by 468 in the past year, concluding 2 468 investigations into assault by police officers.

While investigations of deaths due to police action were below target, at 259 concluded probes as compared to the targeted 280, this was due to delays in obtaining ballistic and post-mortem reports and temporary closures of laboratories due to Covid.

But one of their many successes in the past weeks includes the investigation of a police officer in the Northern Cape for using his service pistol to shoot a man in the Siyathemba police station on Saturday.

The officer was retaliating to a man armed with a knife who was accusing the officer of having an affair with the man’s wife – who is also a police sergeant.

“The [man] assaulted the [officer] and the [officer] sprayed him with pepper spray. The [man] then took out a knife from his pocket and tried to stab the [officer].

“The [officer] ran away towards the police barracks and the [man] continued to chase the suspect with a knife and nearly managed to stab [the officer] twice.

“The [officer] then took out his service pistol and shot the man in the abdomen,” said Ipid spokesperson Grace Langa.

On Wednesday, the Ipid pounced on a 23-year-old constable at the Kirstenhof police station in the Western Cape for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl twice when the young girl went to visit her family, where the officer had also resided.

The day before that, nine police officers appeared at the Durban Regional Court for facing charges of torture, attempted murder, murder, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice.

A further 12 officers linked to the case were detained during the course of the week.

“We cannot deny that among us there are some police officers who get involved in criminality and corruption and we welcome those members being dealt with decisively,” said national police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo.

“Within the SA Police Service, the national police commissioner has set up a task team to deal with corruption and we have made many arrests on those, including lieutenant generals.”

Meanwhile, the Ipid was hoping for a heavy sentence for the four police officers who were found guilty of the murder of a suspect who was assaulted by the officers in 2019.

The deceased man was a relative of an alleged drunk driver who had resisted arrest.

The alleged drunk driver and the deceased man were assaulted by police officers.

Upon taking them to hospital for alcohol blood tests, the beaten relative, who had remained in the police van, died in the vehicle.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za