Bongiwe Mhlalasa (38) recently found herself in a terrifying situation when she allegedly experienced police brutality for the first time.
After she tweeted her horrific experience, she told Fourways Review her story. Mhlalasa had just come out of Kong Restaurant at Cedar Square Fourways when she and a friend sat in her car talking. “From nowhere police stopped behind my car,” said Mhlalasa. The police officers asked to speak with Mhlalasa’s friend Allen Pshal and she accompanied him to the police vehicle.
“The police asked what we were doing, I told them that we were just sitting and talking. They then said that they weren’t speaking to me,” explained Mhlalasa.
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She asked the police what the problem was and what their names were, but the response that she got would give anyone goosebumps. The police officers told Mhlalasa that she talked too much and they then allegedly grabbed her arms and cuffed her hands behind her back.
A tearful Mhlalasa alleged that they threw her into the back of the police van and drove off like maniacs. “I was falling around in the back of the van.”
When they got to Douglasdale Police Station, the two police officers put Mhlalasa in a holding cell. By this time they had allegedly not charged her with any offence or mentioned any rights.
Mhlalasa claims she kept asking the police officers what she was being held for, but they allegedly never told her what the charges were. “After about an hour in the holding cell, they said to me that they will keep me there until I come to my senses and stop talking so much.” Mhlalasa was in the holding cell for about three hours, bringing her time spent at the station to about four hours.
She said the form she was asked to sign said that she was being charged with drunkenness, which claims was not mentioned to her at any point. “They never did a breathalyser test to see whether I was, in fact, drunk,” complained Mhlalasa.
After she got home, a yellow slip that she had received at the station showed that Pshal, (who had not been held) had paid her bail of R100, and signed the yellow slip.
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Mhlalasa said she has no criminal record. She has opened a case against the two officers.
After numerous attempts to obtain comment from Douglasdale Police Station, spokesperson for the station, Captain Mpho Kgasoane said the case is still under investigation.
Zoe van Onselen, head of marketing in the Fourways Precinct said, “Cedar Square management is aware of the incident, and is currently cooperating with the SAPS investigating officer.”
Edited by Stacey Woensdregt
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