A TEACHER from Suid-Natal High was ‘arrested’ for being the organiser of an ‘illegal strike’ last Tuesday. Adrie Keyser, who teaches grade 9, embarked on an education strategy to inform pupils about the procedures that need to be followed when strikes and demonstrations are planned, as well as the consequences when the strikes are not held in a peaceful manner. Pupils were not happy about certain issues at the school and therefore decided to ‘go on strike.’
Warrant Officers Johan Maree and Gerhard Prinsloo from Port Shepstone, together with members of the Port Shepstone K9 Search and Rescue Unit, had to use ‘necessary force’ to disperse the crowd. They refused to adhere to police requests to disperse when their ‘organiser’ was ‘arrested’. Warrant Officer Maree also answered some questions from the pupils after the exercise.
Sergeant Rommel da Rosa and Sergeant Joseph Cele from the K9 Search and Rescue Unit, Port Shepstone recently visited Pikkie Pre-primary School together with their K9 partners, Kim and Rhonda.
The children listened with much interest as the two members told them about missing children. Rhonda and Kim then played hide-and-seek with the children, demonstrating how missing children can be found by these dogs.
Police members from Port Shepstone also recently spent the morning with the grade 10 Port Shepstone High pupils. Warrant Officer Andries van den Berg from Decentralised Training, Port Shepstone SAPS spoke to the packed hall of some 250 pupils about police clothing, the firearms they carry and in what kind of situations they use their equipment.
Sgt da Rosa explained the important role police dogs play in assisting police in searching for missing people on land and water, locating drugs and arresting criminals. Sergeant Stanley Holloway also educated the pupils about the dangers of taking drugs and steroids and consuming alcohol. He also warned pupils to be careful, when out socialising, of the ‘date rape’ drug.
Pupils were taken to the school field where some attempted, exhaustingly, to run across with heavy bullet-proof vests weighing between eight and 12kgs and a rifle. To demonstrate how quickly a police dog can sniff out drugs, police hid a packet of dagga in a police vehicle and asked one of the pupils, Avuzwa Melane, to search for the drugs. She was unable to find the packet, so police bought in their police dog, which found it within seconds.
