UPDATE: ‘Malicious’ official shared staged video of policeman ‘assaulting’ policewoman – Saps

A video of what appears to be a male police officer assaulting a female colleague in full view of his other coworkers has gone viral, but a South African Police Service (Saps) spokesperson has urged the public to stop sharing it.

According to Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo, the police were simply being trained on the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) and what looked like the male officer hitting his female counterpart was just an act.

“The video circulating on social media in which a policeman appears to be assaulting a policewoman is, in fact, a Domestic Violence Act (DVA) class. Please do not continue posting the video without the proper facts,” he said.

Police in KwaZulu-Natal have since released a statement condemning the posting of the clip and said they believed a “malicious” police official may be behind it.

“It is suspected that a police official who might have attended this training intervention at our Durban Training Center last year could be responsible for recording this scene and posting the clip online,” said the statement issued by Brigadier Jay Naicker.

“We are indeed perturbed and believe that this individual was extremely malicious because of the timing of the release of the video,” the statement continues.

“We are requesting members of the public who are in possession of the video clip not to repost it. Whilst it is clear from the classroom setup that this is a training session, some may not immediately realise that and will be disturbed by what they see.

“Police management in KwaZulu-Natal have launched an investigation to identify the perpetrator and ensure that he or she is brought to book in terms of our internal disciplinary regulations.”

The video has gained a lot of traction on both Facebook – where the version above already has over half a million views – and on Twitter, where popular account @PigSpotter, known for his tweets with information on Gauteng roadblocks and traffic in which police are often referred to as pigs, appears to have jumped to conclusions regarding whether the video actually shows an assault on a female officer.

Many of @PigSpotter’s followers, however, were quick to express their view that the alleged assault supposedly depicted in the clip did not look real.

Some even guessed that the police appeared to be involved in some kind of training. According to the police, they were correct.

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