The public was left with mixed emotions when a distasteful video of a taxi driver, a woman, and Ray Nkonyeni Municipality (RNM) law enforcement officers who appeared to be fighting made the rounds on social media.
In the widely shared video, the RNM law enforcement officers could be seen pulling the taxi driver’s T-shirt and spraying something on his face, while the woman was slapping the driver on his face outside his taxi.
In a statement, RNM said they saw it necessary to set the record straight as the incident involved their law enforcement officers, a woman in civilian clothes, and a taxi driver.
RNM spokesperson, Simon April said this was necessitated by the fact that some people are accusing RNM law enforcement officers of assisting a ‘white lady’ in abusing a taxi driver.
“The incident took place in Shelly Beach on Wednesday, June 7. Our law enforcement officers were stationary in Shelly Beach doing visible policing. The incident started when a minibus taxi was constantly hooting disregarding the municipal by-laws and South African Traffic Act on “constantly and unnecessary hooting” in the presence of law enforcement officers. On seeing this, members gave a warning with a siren and the driver disregarded the warning by continuing to hoot. The officers then approached the driver with the intention of issuing a written notice for the commission of an offence,” said April, adding that instead, the driver started to use offensive hand gestures and insulted members using an ‘F’ word, and drove off.
April said officers followed the driver and were able to stop the minibus near St Michael’s bridge, a few kilometres away from the initial scene.
He added that even there, the driver refused to cooperate and allegedly assaulted one of the women traffic officers.
“At that time, Saps detectives that were passing by saw the altercation and assisted RNM law enforcement officers to effect an arrest. The ‘white lady’ in civilian clothes on the video is one of the Saps detectives who assisted to effect the arrest. The driver was arrested and a case was opened at Margate police station,” he said.
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