|
Blue Lights II
| Date: |
07 February 2010 07:00 |
| Producer: |
Susan Purèn
|
| Presenter: |
Chantal Rutter
|
| Researcher: |
Wynand Grobler
|
| Show: | Carte Blanche |
This police car [on screen] is attached to the flying squad in Pretoria... the sight of which, on patrol in your neighbourhood, should send out feelings of well-being.
But it's alleged that the policemen to whom this car was assigned on the nights of the 12th and 13th of January this year were up to no good.
Their behaviour caused havoc in the lives of Anli and Deon Groenewald who were subjected to harassment and physical abuse over 24 hours.
The Groenewald's case is another instance in a litany of abuses perpetrated by uniformed police and traffic officers.
[Carte Blanche 24 Jan 2010] Two weeks ago on Carte Blanche, it was the Blue Light Bullies of KwaZulu-Natal; unmarked vehicles with blue lights, sometimes protecting VIPs, sometimes simply harassing motorists on provincial highways and byways.
[Carte Blanche 24 Jan 2010] Jude Ward: 'He comes up right behind you, he's weaving all the time, the blue lights are flashing on the dashboard...'
[Carte Blanche 24 Jan 2010] Jude Ward of Camperdown in KZN fell prey to a speeding traffic policeman and when she sought refuge at her local police station, the cops there allegedly looked on as she was assaulted.
[Carte Blanche 24 Jan 2010] Jude: 'He took my head and choked me, and hit my head on the floor. I actually looked out of the corner of my eye thinking if some black shoes walked my way they would pull him off me. Nobody assisted.'
We asked viewers who had had similar experiences to share their stories with us... and we've been inundated with emails and phone calls, some from as far afield as Australia and France.
It seems that more and more police officers disregard standing orders, procedures and the Constitutional rights of the public.
There are also marked similarities in the cases; the victims being pushed off the road, excessive force used and sometimes racial undertones.
Anli Groenewald was stopped by three policemen in the flying squad car.
Anli Groenewald: 'The one that was in the passenger seat said he would like to take this white bitch to Mamelodi and then they will show me what they will do with me there.'
Anli was on her way home in the early hours of the morning when she noticed a police car alongside the road.
It followed her, blue lights flashing.
Thinking they must be on their way to a crime scene, she carried on driving.
Then the driver waved a gun at her.
So she stopped and asked what the problem was.
Anli: 'He said to me that he can stop me anytime because he is the police and besides that, that time of the night all vehicles on the road are suspect.'
Chantal Rutter (Carte Blanche guest presenter): 'By coincidence, Anli's husband Deon and two of his friends were coming home at the same time. She managed to catch their attention, they pulled over to the side of the road to enquire about what was going on, but the police wanted none of it.'
Deon Groenewald: 'He was holding his R5. I said, 'Better tell me what's going on, or shoot me. I need to know what's happening - this is my wife, I need to know.''
Despite telling Anli that all vehicles are considered suspect that time of the night we have established that the officers never once accessed the eNaTis system - the national vehicle registry - to establish the car's ownership.
Anli was only allowed to go when a female officer, who had been called in as back up, intervened.
Anli: 'The police woman said to the guys, 'You are abusing your authority and you must please get in your cars and go.''
One would hope that an ordeal like this happens to a very few people and maybe once in a life time, but not in this case. Less than 18 hours later at around ten o' clock at night the Groenewalds were on their way home and as they turned into Old Farm Road - their street - the very same police vehicle was behind them.
Presenter: 'A printout from the Groenewalds' car tracking system shows they were pulled over just before a quarter-past-ten.'
As soon as they stopped, Anli was plucked from the car, handcuffed, and shoved into the back of the police vehicle, which then sped off.
Anli: 'They didn't read [me] my rights; they didn't tell me why they were arresting me. I was actually terrified... and also the pain I experienced because they handcuffed me behind my back. I [kept] on asking them, 'Please, you don't have to cuff me,' or 'just loosen the cuffs a bit,' and they just refused.'
The three policemen, Inspector Sebeko, Contable Malema and a Constable Malete, took Anli to the nearby Garsfontein police station.
She speaks Sesotho and soon realised what kind of a night they had planned for her.
Anli: 'They were saying they will teach me a lesson tonight. At about 12:30 they brought me a form where they actually made accusations against me for speeding away from the police, assaulting the police, bribing a police officer and driving under the influence.'
Anli says none of this was true.
But the reality was that she was under arrest and had to remain behind bars until the next morning.
The police, for some reason, left her handcuffs on in the cell.
Anli's desperate cries for help alerted the entire neighbourhood.
Anli: 'I kept on screaming, 'Deon please come and help me! Ask them to loosen it. I'm in the cell, what can i do?''
Deon: ' You know on the one hand I wished for super powers to turn this place around, and on the other, I wished I was in jail, going through that. I was feeling so sorry for her, and I wish I could just pull her out there and disappear. I was just banging on the window saying, 'I'm here, just calm down.''
At four minutes after one - and still tightly handcuffed - the police took Anli to hospital to have her blood tested for alcohol.
Deon tried to follow them.
The car's tracking system reveals that Deon reached speeds of up to a 150km/h in his attempt to keep up with the police vehicle.
He failed and returned to the police station.
Deon: 'I was just praying for God to protect her, for no harm to be done to her.'
The police later brought Anli back and locked her up for the rest of the night.
The next day, she was released on a R1000 bail.
These pictures of her bruised body and swollen hands were taken later that day.
Anli: 'Because of huge pressure for almost five hours with those cuffs, those nerves are damaged.'
Incidents like these have become commonplace and have compelled Andre Snyman of eBlockwatch to developed a communication system where people can instantly put police abuse on record.
He calls it 'Police the Police'.
Andre Snyman: 'Every South African thinks that they have to put money in their ID book so that, when they do get stopped, they have to bribe the cop. I think it has gotten to a stage now that it is just completely out of hand.'
By pressing a dedicated button on your cellphone, it turns into a recording device, where you give an eyewitness account of what's happening to you at that moment.
In this dramatisation, a woman is recording what she is seeing.
When the cellphone connection is terminated - either by you or somebody else - the information is immediately stored on a server and a voice recording is sent to four cellphone numbers, chosen by you on registering for the service.
The voice recording is received as an email on a cellphone or a laptop.
The service requires one to sign up on the eBlockwatch website.
Part time cattle farmer Andre Nel and his wife Marie moved to this small-holding on the outskirts of Pretoria to bring up their three children, away from the city.
In December last year, Andre and his farm workers were battling to get a cow and her calf into a camp on the farm.
Presenter: 'There was a lot of action trying to get the animals in the camp and two strangers standing on the opposite side of the road then started making fun of the Nels and their workers. When the workers complained about this, Andre asked the two strangers to mind their own business and leave them alone.'
But 15 minutes later the two strangers were back, accompanied by seven armed policemen in a vehicle.
Andre Nel: 'The one guy said to me, 'Listen, shut up - don't make any noise.' Then he grabbed me by my shirt and started hitting me.'
When Marie tried to intervene, she says she was knocked to the ground.
Andre: 'And then that guy that grabbed me... the policeman that grabbed me by the shirt and tore my shirt, hit her with the back hand like this... and she fell to the ground. And at that stage I got so furious that I told him, 'Listen, now I'm going to fight back.'
Marie managed to free herself and flagged down a passing car.
The Nel's children and the occupants of the car, including a baby, were all allegedly pepper-sprayed by the police.
Marie: 'If the children were not a threat to them, why spray pepper gas into their eyes?'
Tempers flared as the men tried to protect their families against the armed policemen.
Marie: 'I looked at my daughter and she was looking at me as she was saying, 'Mommy, we are all dying today?' That's when my fear started. I became terrified.'
Presenter: 'At this point at least 40 to 50 farmers stopped here at the Nel's farm, noticing a problem. This may have frightened the police who tried to leave, but they crashed into another vehicle and allegedly knocked over a bystander.'
The Pretoria North police station in the meantime dispatched two vehicles to the farm.
The situation apparently reached boiling point when an officer from the station asked one of the rogue cops for identification.
Andre: 'Then things got out of hand between them. Then they arrested that guy. And those police officers demanded that they put me in the back of the vehicle as well.'
A charge of crimen injuria against Andre was later withdrawn. The Nels still don't know who the rogue policemen were, but our own investigation has revealed that they are from the police protection security service division. They were apparently on their way home in a police vehicle after work.
Marie: ' They gave our children fear. Not just for other people, but for police officers. Because afterwards the children asked us, 'Mommy, what if something must happen to us now? Who do we call? Because the police officers won't help us - look what they did to us.''
In a statement, police told us they were investigating the allegations made by the Nels and the Groenewalds, and that the driving under the influence case against Anli Groenewald was ongoing.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
|