PRIVATE SECURITY FIRMS GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST THE HOMELESS

THIS is the third and last column I am dedicating to the impact the law enforcement agencies in Cape Town had on me while homeless.

In the first, I focused on law enforcement, while in the second, I focused on SANParks.

I said I would this week focus on SAPS and a private security company. SAPS is the easier of the two to start with as they, in my experience, never really focused on harassing the homeless for being homeless.

I have recently seen articles and posts that indicate there has been a shift there but, in my experience, their involvement was always motivated by drug possession or use by the homeless, and this would seem acceptable.

Unfortunately, they had a unit that focused on the homeless, and spoilt and promoted due to the many prosecutions they achieved, they became a law unto themselves.

As I have mentioned before, the homeless soon realised it was better to plead guilty and get a three-month sentence at Court 23 than it was to plead not guilty and sit in “awaiting trial” for up to a year, awaiting lab results to come back, so most of those arrested just pleaded guilty, whether they were or weren’t, and this became an invitation for this rogue group to plant drugs on homeless people in order to bolster their unit’s success.

The one thing I do lay at the SAPS responsibility door is that they never protected or investigated complaints by myself and other homeless people against all these other law enforcement agencies that were committing crimes against homeless people.

PPA is one of the most detested private security groups in operation. It is a company that was started by a gangster who managed to elevate himself into respectable society in Sea Point until he was recently detained overseas.

I am talking from experience here. While on the streets, I was so desperate to get off the streets and mountain that at one stage, I agreed to, together with another homeless man, “Rasta”, act as security at one of his properties in Sea Point in exchange for accommodation in this building.

It has since been demolished, but at the time, every Sea Point resident was aware of the goings-on at the prime corner property in ruins of No 79 Ocean View Drive.

For my safety, I will avoid details, but suffice it to say that it is only through God’s grace that I can walk today, having been left lying with what even Somerset Hospital assumed was a broken neck, after being pushed two floors down an unfinished staircase one night by opposing gangsters.

Sadly, the public has falsely been led to believe that all homeless people are drug addicts and thieves, and so preying on the fear they have orchestrated and instilled in the residents of upper Sea Point and upper Vredehoek. This rogue and violent unit has virtually taken over the “personal protection” of these residents.

Despite the police claiming that PPA has no right to prevent any homeless person or anyone else from walking into any road above Ocean View Drive in Sea Point and Fresnaye, and Rugby Road in Vredehoek, PPA patrols, and stationary vehicles at these intersections will see to it that these streets are treated as closed and private roads.

My experience of defying this and being caught in one of these streets, where you are innocently using it as the fastest route to your destination or to skarrel, is to have dogs set on you, being physically assaulted with a fist or chased and pushed down the stairs that lead you back into Ocean View Drive.

This brings me to the other misconception that people in these affluent areas are under, and that is, it is always the homeless who are responsible for the break-ins into homes or cars in these areas.

And sadly, many desperate homeless people succumb to the temptation offered to them by the security guards being employed at complexes and homes in the area.

Take this from a very reliable source that saw many succumb to this temptation: those guarding your properties are often the suppliers of information on when you will be away and when the best time to carry out the deeds will be, and in effect, employers of those homeless people that were desperate and stupid enough to do their dirty work for them.

In no way do I condone the involvement of homeless people in these crimes, but like with drug addicts always being the focus for arrest by law enforcement agencies rather than the drug pushers, runners and dealers, so too, in this case, it is the desperate homeless person who gets the blame, and no blame is levelled at the masterminds.

In conclusion to this series, I would just like to say these law enforcement agencies have left me with both physical and emotional scars, but they must know they have not managed to break my spirit.

I would also like to apologise to the individuals who are aligned to all of these agencies that I have focused on and who do their work and conduct themselves with dignity and respect.

I wish I could say that they were the rule and not the exception, but sadly, my experience has proven the opposite is true, and hence my exposing these abuses of my rights and my person.