Female cops on brutality rap

Rorisang Kgosana

Two Pretoria West female officers are under investigation for police brutality after a video showed them pulling a woman by the hair and violently throwing her in the back of a police van. This was allegedly because the woman, Amber-Kaleen Jacobsz, insulted them when they accused her of smoking dagga.

Jacobsz, 40, who rents a room in a complex in Danville, said she was fixing her car while teenagers nearby were smoking dagga earlier this month. “I heard the kids saying ‘cops’ and they ran.

“The police van drove past, then came back into our yard. One of the officers said ‘who the f**k are you?’.

“I told the tuck shop guy in Afrikaans ‘die moerskont se kinders’. The officer pulled me into the tuck shop, grabbed my head and rammed it into the table. The table even fell over,” Jacobsz said.

When the police dragged her by the hair to the van, a teenager was taking a video. It appeared that they initially suspected Jacobsz of selling dagga. In the video, one officer said to the teen: “These people will ruin your life.”

To Jacobz, she said: “Dagga is not legal”, and threw her in the van. “They took me to Pretoria West police station and deleted all photos and videos of the event from my phone. When I tried to take my phone, the officer rammed my head into the table.”

Jacobsz was released after writing an apology for insulting the officers. She was not charged or formally arrested.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate is probing a case of police brutality, spokesperson Moses Dlamini said.