Just an hour after unidentified police officers conducted a violent raid on a Promosa family, a family in Baipei was also targetted by policemen in black uniform. They allegedly manhandled the couple in front of their terrified children.
According to Joseph Moholeng and Mpho Tlako, they woke up when the squad, wearing bullet-proof vests and balaclavas, stormed into their house with pump action guns, pistols and cans of tear gas at around 05:00 on Sunday morning and demanded Joseph’s firearm, the licence of which had expired a few months ago.
“I was trying to put on my trousers when they kicked the bedroom door open and started beating me. They dragged my half-naked girlfriend from the bed and assaulted her,” says Joseph. They then turned their attention to him and beat him up in the bedroom.
“The children were hysterical” he remembers. They begged the officers, who seemed to have gone berserk, to leave the kids alone. The couple has a 10-year-old daughter, a 6-year-old epileptic son and a 10-month-old baby boy. The middle child suffered a seizure during the commotion and the baby was crying non-stop.
“They handcuffed Joseph and took him to the cells in Potchefstroom. They released him the next day after his lawyer intervened.
“My children can’t sleep because they think they will come back and shoot them,” she says.
“I was planning to renew the licence after I got paid. Mpho and our boy have had many health problems and I first wanted to pay their medical bills,” explains Joseph. “They cannot treat us like that and violate our human rights.”
The provincial police claim they know nothing about the officers who assaulted them but Joseph says the Potchefstroom Crime Investigation Department (CID) van had escorted their vehicles that morning.
According to the NW SAPS spokesperson, Col Sabata Mokgwabone, the family has been advised to lodge a formal complaint with the station commander.
Birgit Schwarz, the senior press officer of Human Rights Watch says a report raises serious concerns about the conduct and capacity of the SAPS.
“A number of incidents in 2015 highlighted police brutality and the use of excessive and disproportionate force,” she says.
