Pretoria - Racism reared its ugly head when an Afrikaans-speaking man allegedly attacked an SABC journalist and his friends in Kameeldrif last Friday evening, breaking the windows of his car and telling them they were not welcome in a “white” area.
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini confirmed an investigation of a case of malicious damage to property had been finalised.
This, he told the Pretoria News, would be taken to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a decision.
The newsman, Tumelo Zulu, and his two friends were driving through the unfamiliar farming area in the north-east of Pretoria when the man cut them off in his white Hyundai bakkie.
The bakkie was part of a convoy of three cars.
The man approached them and hurled racial expletives at them.
In a fit of rage, he broke the windows of Zulu’s Mercedes-Benz. He later pulled out a gun and chased the four around their car, they said.
“We ran into darkness, fearing that he would shoot us,” said Zulu, who had come from Brits with friends and got lost while trying to locate the home of a friend.
He said they had just driven off Moloto Road when they were stopped by the leading car in the convoy that was travelling in the opposite direction.
“A giant white man came out of the bakkie and said, ‘Wat soek julle hierso, julle f****n k*****s ?’ (‘What are you doing here, you f*****g k*****s?),” he said.
The man told them he did not want black people in the area, they alleged.
“We tried to tell him we were lost, but he started smashing the windows of the car and calling us all sorts of racial names. We are not sure what object he had in his hand,” Zulu said.
The friend who was driving Zulu’s car was hurt by the breaking glass as they cowered inside the car.
They told the Pretoria News they begged him to stop, but the attacker circled the car and hit every one of its windows, swearing at them and calling them derogatory racial names.
Zulu said that as the man went about his rampage, a woman came out of the car and asked him to stop so they could leave.
It was when he pulled out his gun that they got out and tried to duck at the other end of the Mercedes-Benz.
“He ran after us around the car a few times before we took the risk and ran off into the dark, risking being shot,” he said.
Behind them they could hear his expletives moving towards his car, which then drove off with the other two following behind. They went back to the car and drove off to find a police station.
Things did not get any better when they arrived at the Kameeldrif police station. They claim that an officer asked them why they were driving around in the dark in a “white area” in the first place.
“We also learned that the man had already been there to open a case against us, saying we tried to hijack him, but the police told him to go home because he was drunk.
“It was two hours later when another officer came in to take our statement, including the registration number of the car driven by the man.”
They were assigned an investigation officer and told to leave.
“But no one had contacted us yet, and all calls to the station are unanswered,” Zulu said.
He had taken his damaged car in for repairs and had been told it would be fixed for R11 000.
Dlamini said all citizens had a right to freedom of movement. “We will look into the allegations as to why the investigating officer did not give the victim feedback.
“Victims of crimes have the right to know how their cases were progressing,” he said.
Zulu said he and his friends were still shaken by the incident and were being counselled by senior members of their church.
“We want to see justice done; what happened to us is something no one should go through, not in this lifetime,” he added. “South Africa is our home and we should be allowed to drive in Kameeldrif, or anywhere else for that matter.”
@ntsandvose
Pretoria News