According to Florida CPF’s Caleb Finn the Florida Police has rectified their mistake with regards to not opening a case for assault victim Elise Pieterse on 9 October.
“Family of Pieterse made contact with the Florida CPF Executive Committee on the evening of 9 October requesting advice and assistance and an undertaking was given that we would come back to them on Saturday,” said Finn.
Police says can’t help assault victim
“The next day around 1pm contact was made with the family of Pieterse to indicate that they should please come to Florida SAPS and open a case.
“Pieterse and her husband arrived at Florida Police Station shortly after this and she was assisted with the opening of her assault case by one of the officers on duty,” said Finn
Finn also asked to point out the following:
• The current renovations at Florida Police Station are having a negative impact on service delivery as the temporary Community
Service Centre (CSC), which is a caravan, is limited in its capabilities and does not always lend itself to making service delivery easy. We are hoping that Department of Public Works will speed up the renovations and reopen the new CSC. In the meantime we do request that the community please attempt to be patient with the SAPS members as they are trying their best under difficult
circumstances.
• In the majority of the complaints we deal with, it is normally the result of a miscommunication between a SAPS member and the
community member, this can be for a number of reasons. We must bear in mind that the complainant has been a victim of crime and they are often full of adrenaline and anger and on the other hand the police member is dealing with the tenth such case for the day and is also under a lot of pressure, the combination of the two can sometimes lead to a problem.The police systems are very complex and technical, for example in order to open certain types of cases you require certain reference numbers and documents, when the police member explains that he / she can not open the case without this it is sometimes viewed as the officer
is refusing to open the case. Meanwhile the reality is the police system will not register the case without that information.
• I would encourage the community to give the officer time to explain without answering him / her back in a frustrated manner, try take a few deep breaths and slow yourself down as we know the trauma of crime is not nice and it causes people to react in various ways. Listen carefully to the officer and feel free to ask them questions if it does not make sense but by just communicating slowly and carefully it can already save us many miscommunications.
• The community is also more than welcome to request to see the Relief / Shift Commander should they not be happy with what the officers in the CSC have told them, by querying in a respectful manner the commander on duty can either verify or correct what has been told to you by the officers. This commander is normally the rank of a Captain or alternatively a Warrant Officer or Sergeant depending on the manpower for the shift. It is advisable for the community to use this option if they are not clear as it will avoid us dealing with many complaints later on, it is better to seek clarity at the time the confusion occurs.
• We must also be very clear in saying that we believe that the majority of men and woman in blue at are committed to serving the community and fighting crime. Many do try their absolute best with the limited resources they have. We thank each and every one of them who go the extra mile despite the challenges and we are aware of many positive stories where members have gone above and beyond to assist the community. We are also aware of very disappointing stories but we do believe in time the negative elements at Florida SAPS will be removed and that the positive stories will outweigh the negative ones.
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