WATCH: Free State cops lock man in dog cage
Cape Town - A video of a man being transported inside a dog cage on the back of a police vehicle is being circulated as the latest in a string of incidents of police cruelty.
In the video, which was posted on the OFM YouTube channel, a man can be seen hunched over inside the cage which is secured on the back of an open patrol vehicle. In an adjacent cage is a large dog.
The incident allegedly occurred in Hennenman in the Free State in 2019 and it is not yet known why the man was being arrested.
Provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Motantsi Makhele confirmed that SAPS is aware of the incident and an investigation into the matter has been ordered.
“The Provincial Commissioner, Lt Gen Baile Motswenyane regards this matter as very serious hence she instructed the District Commissioner to, with immediate effect, start with departmental investigation to probe this matter. For now we regard the matter as pending, and will allow the legal route to unfold,” Makhele said.
On Monday, four police officers were arrested after a bystander was shot dead during a protest by students at Wits University in Braamfontein. Mthokozisi Ntumba, 35, was returning from a doctor’s visit when he was shot. The conduct of plice officers during that protests has been criticised by civil society and political figures.
Last year police were roundly criticised for the manner in which they enforced the country’s Covid-19 lockdown regulations. During the first two months of the lockdown numerous incidents of physical violence and verbal abuse by police officers.
In one incident in Vosloorus a man was shot dead and four children injured, allegedly by police who were reacting to a tip-off that people were drinking during the alcohol ban. This despite the ban being on the sale of alcohol and not the consumption thereof.
According to Ipid, 1 065 complaints were registered against police between the start of the country’s lockdown on March 26 last year and the end of January 2021.
IOL