Musician’s close shave with cops

Maswana bundled into a car, roughed up and thrown out

Jazz singer Dumza Maswana is recovering from shock after he was roughed up by police officers in a case of mistaken identity.

The incident happened on Tuesday night around 7pm near Newtown Junction Mall. The singer from Peddie in the Eastern Cape said he was minding his own business while waiting for a police motorcade that was escorting a truck to pass.

He said he was grabbed from behind and shoved into a police-branded car.

“I’m standing there texting ... a police man shouts, ‘hey, what’s your problem?’ I didn’t think they were talking to me, I continued texting.

“He grabbed me from behind and pushed me inside the police car. I realised that it was the same policeman that was shouting. He tells his colleagues to deal with me.”

Maswana said they further asked if he was a journalist and went through his phone, checking videos, recent calls and pictures. “I told them I was not a journalist but an artist. He was cursing all this time, and he found nothing...”

Maswana said the incident happened very fast like a bad scene in a film. “In my head I was thinking, ‘what if they plant drugs or stuff in my pockets?’ Thank God they didn’t beat me, but that wasn’t nice.”

Maswana added that while in the car, he begged the officers to leave him after the notorious Nelson Mandela Bridge, but instead they pushed him out right at the bridge. The singer said he would not open a case because he was not ready to rehash the bad experience.