Apartheid policing culture must stop
THE recent release of an Ipid (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) report showing a “dramatic increase” in deaths at the hands of the police is a timely reminder that not nearly enough has been done to address the type of police brutality, which led to the mowing down of students in Soweto in 1976 and miners at Marikana in 2012.
Although the Ipid report for April to September 2016 showed an increase in deaths in custody and as a result of police action, it should be noted that, despite annual fluctuations, many hundreds of people have died at the hands of the police annually in the past 15 years.
Abuse and torture (a very serious crime) is also widespread and under-reported.
While there are many fine, hard-working professional police members, there are also far too many who continue to use apartheid tactics.
Some units have achieved notoriety. Members regularly raid rural and poor urban areas without search warrants, looking for guns.
Doors may be kicked open, property damaged and money stolen.
Residents are assaulted or tortured, using methods including “tubing” – near suffocation with a plastic bag – which can lead to death.
The first victim of the recent Glebelands violence died while being “tubed” during interrogation in March 2014.
Glebelands resident Richard Nzama was arrested in July 2015 and subjected to particularly brutal torture – including “tubing” – which damaged his sight, hearing and teeth.
Initially denied bail, he did not receive the medical attention ordered by the magistrate.
Charges were withdrawn four months later (a common pattern).
At least 11 cases of torture, including of a woman, were recorded in Glebelands, but most victims did not open cases.
Overt threats and the fear of consequences result in serious under-reporting of torture cases.
Police members are not necessarily exempt from abuse.
An inspector serving at a station in northern KwaZuluNatal was arrested and charged with murdering police members during an ATM robbery in Mpumalanga and kept for many months without bail.
In an attempt to extract a confession, he was brutally tortured, including by “tubing”, and suffered serious injury to his arm.
When his family finally managed to get medical attention for him, he needed surgery. He finally secured competent legal representation and was given bail.
The charges against him were subsequently withdrawn and it was alleged the malicious arrest was orchestrated by police members, who were themselves implicated in the crime. Some deaths reported as a result of police action may be linked to shoot-outs in which several people are killed.
While police have the right to defend themselves when under attack from armed criminals, serious questions about some of these shootings arise from reports from sources who refuse to give statements to investigators for fear for their own safety.
What is absolutely disgraceful is callous conduct towards, and emotional abuse of, the families of those killed in such incidents.
In March, five young men were killed in an alleged shoot-out with police near Pietermaritzburg.
Their families were never officially informed of the deaths of their loved ones and some claimed that when they went to the crime scene, they were threatened with tear gas. However, crime scene photographs of the dead had been posted on social media, causing further trauma to the grieving families.
Training
A few weeks later, a policeman giving a talk to pupils at a local high school, referred to the same incident, saying that was how they dealt with criminals and, hearing that they knew the 19-year-old victim, boasted he had shot him and the pupils should tell his parents.
Like the apartheid police, such members and their management do not only have no regard for the rule of law, now entrenched in our constitution, but are in effect emotionally torturing family members of people they would have shot.
This situation persists because virtually nothing has been done in 23 years to change apartheid policing culture.
Since 2008, the utterances of politicians from the president downwards have reinforced it.
Police are poorly trained and trigger-happy and may even accidentally kill their own during confrontations with suspected criminals.
It must be emphasised that the blame lies with grossly incompetent, arrogant and unaccountable management, which is itself an indictment of political interference.
One senior management member was frank enough to admit that the country cannot afford what is being paid out in claims against the police.
This continues because there is a culture of virtual impunity.
While there were 30 convictions for deaths as a result of police actions countrywide in 2015/16 (less than 10% of reported cases), there were no convictions for deaths in custody.
Ipid is ineffectual and riddled with problems, seemingly ignoring its governing legislation and regulations.
Almost two years after Nzama was tortured, no identity parade has been held, despite ample evidence.
Similarly, shack resident VM almost died when he was “tubed” by a police member sitting astride him over a year ago and no ID parade has been held.
As a consequence of the gross mismanagement of forensic mortuary services by the MEC for Health, all experienced pathologists have resigned and, without mentoring, the newly qualified are likely to miss crucial evidence.
The importance of good forensic evidence in criminal investigations cannot be overemphasised, so justice is being defeated. Ipid also needs more independence from the police.
It should have its own crime scene investigators and ballistics experts and not rely on the police. Neither should it report to the minister of police, but to an independent body, such as one headed by a retired judge.