‘I wasn’t a criminal, yet the police treated me worse than one’
IRVIN DALAIS: Strangled and beaten at Mondeor police station Case unresolved
The police were called to my house on an afternoon in May for a domestic disturbance. I didn’t want to be arguing with the police in front of my children so I volunteered to drive myself to the police station.
I was calm at all times because I know how aggressive the police officers at Mondeor police station can be. When I arrived at the police station to make my statement one officer leaped towards me and grabbed my arm and pinned me to the wall. He handcuffed me, like I was a common criminal, even though I had driven myself to the station. After handcuffing me he started choking me and throwing me on desks.
I used to be an officer myself and I know what protocol is. I was not a criminal, yet they treated me worse than that.
I was in shock that I would be assaulted this way in a police station in front of witnesses. It was only after I had a few bruises that one of the officers pulled his colleague off me.
The handcuffs were taken off me, but then the challenge was actually opening the case because everyone refused to assist me.
After at least two hours did I find a number on the notice board for the station commander and he was the one who instructed a captain to open a case.
It took the police station two months to get back to me with a case number, which goes to show how little they cared about a case opened against one of their own.
The case has reached the Ipid [Independent Police Investigative Directorate], but not a single person
has contacted me since the incident.
LUCKY NGELE:
Shot by police officers Case unresolved
The week before we [his football team] had just made it into the top four and that Sunday we were going to play our game to ensure we were in the finals. But it wasn’t to be. As I was making my way to the field to warm up for the game I noticed that there was a crowd gathering. I asked a few people what was going on and learned that the community was about to beat up a known thief who they said had raided someone’s house.
Before I could find out more, the police had arrived in vans to save the thief. But the community didn’t disperse. I was quite far away from the crowd but when I heard the gunshots I ran towards an area with trucks to hide. When I cowered behind one of the trucks I felt what I thought was my phone vibrating. It wasn’t my phone.
People started running in all directions and I followed until I stopped at a spaza shop where a friend of mine told me that I had blood on my leg. I had been shot.
I was rushed to the hospital and the bullet was removed. We tried to follow up the case, going as far as the local Ipid office, but after two years we were told by the investigating officer that the docket had disappeared. The police are not meant to fire live ammunition to get rid of a crowd; many more people could have died that day. But there is no justice for us poor people.