No excuse for the police's profiling behaviour

About two weeks ago, there was an armed home invasion in the complex where I live. In bright daylight, with a security guard meters away, three guys casually parked their car in a visitor's bay. They then gained access to a house and attacked one of the owners in front of her two small children. Hearing her screams, her husband rushed to her defence, but was stabbed in the arm. With all the commotion, the robbers gave up and ran back to their car without taking anything. 

Having heard the woman's screams, neighbours alerted the security guard and also took photos of the car as it sped away. The details were then passed on to the local police and within hours they traced the car and arrested the suspects. A very impressive response by the officers from Cape Town Central and the Metro Police. 

I wanted to tell this story in order to acknowledge that there are still many good and honourable policemen and women in South African Police Service (SAPS) before I continue with the rest of this column. 

Last Saturday, a man called Rekgotsofetse tweeted about his experience earlier that day with police in Johannesburg. According to his tweets he was in an Uber, which stopped at a red traffic light. He tweeted that police drove past them, stopped in the middle of the intersection, reversed back and then came over to ask Rekgotsofetse if he was a foreigner. 

Just got arrested by the @SAPoliceService while sitting in the back of an uber. Arrested because apparently:

I was a foreigner.
I had a gun.
I had drugs on me.
I was drunk.

When all was proven wrong and I wanted to file a complaint, the cops ran away from the station pic.twitter.com/ZZSZFrBesB

— Rekgotsofetse Chikane (@WeAreSatisfied) July 9, 2022

According to his tweets, Rekgotsofetse responded that they had no right to ask him that. They instructed him to get out of the Uber, which he did. The police then demanded to see his passport. 

Rekgotsofetse wanted to know what he had done wrong and insisted that the police couldn't pull someone over purely because they suspect that s/he was a foreigner. The police then announced that they wanted to search him. Again, he demanded to know what he had done wrong. 

In response they accused him of hiding a firearm. He lifted his shirt and "did a whole spin for them." Not satisfied the officers then accused him of hiding drugs. 

Rekgotsofetse pointed out that they were just making up accusations and demanded to be let go. He insisted that "you can't profile and intimidate by accusing people of things they haven't done."

He then pulled out his phone, presumably to record the incident. 

Accusations 

Rekgotsofetse tweeted that he was handcuffed and thrown in the police van and driven to Sandton Police Station, where they took him to the parking lot at the back "away from prying eyes". There he alleges they manhandled him, while doing the search.  After finding neither a gun or drugs on him, Rekgotsofetse demanded to lay a complaint. 

The officers then accused him of being drunk, but realising that something was off, their colleagues would not do the breathalyser test. This was not quite the end of it, but you get the gist of it. 

The police have not issued a statement following Chikane's tweets. However, if this is an accurate reflection of what happened the police officers made a big mistake. Rekgotsofetse is not a foreigner. He had no drugs nor a firearm on him. He is a former Mandela Rhodes Scholar, lecturer at Wits and a published author who has, among others, a degree from the University of Oxford.

He is also the son of Rev. Frank Chikane, former director-general in the presidency. 

Chikane could, of course, have mentioned all of this early on, but from what I know he didn't. Like his activist father, he stood up for a moral principle and was not going to be intimidated. 

From Chikane's tweets one has to conclude that these police officers were racially profiling people. it seems unlikley that they were interested in whether Chikane was foreign - after all, the SAPS don't go around stopping British and Irish tourists wanting to know if they are foreign. It seems more plausible that they wanted to know whether Chikane was from a neighbouring African country.  

'Cooldrink' money

I have heard similar stories before from Zimbabwean Uber drivers. It usually requires them to pay "cooldrink money" in order not to get locked up, which is presumably where this story was heading. After all, who carries their passport with them all the time? 

What bothers me most is how much this alleged incident reminds me of the police behaviour under apartheid. The officers allegedly stopped a black person, wanting him to show a pass(port) to prove that he had a right to be there. Then after arresting him for no valid reason, they didn't process him in the normal way through the police station. Instead, they took him to the back to deal with him out of sight. This in particular sent a chill up my spine, since it is exactly what the apartheid police used to do – often with catastrophic outcomes for the detainee. 

This incident highlights the growing intolerance to people from neighbouring countries, but also the lawlessness many police officers are guilty of. 

Unacceptable behaviour

I spoke to Chikane via email earlier this week and he said he is going to lay a charge. I hope that he does. Not only for his own sense of justice, but also on behalf of the many foreigners who are too scared to raise their voices. 

I also hope that Police Minister Bheki Cele, picked up the phone and demanded (in this case he is welcome to scream) that the commanding officer at the Sandton Police Station attend to the matter. The two police officers should apologise in person to Chikane for what they put him through and then be punished for what they did. 

It is important that a message is sent to all officers that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.