Johannesburg -
A distraught couple has opened a case of kidnapping against Joburg metro police department (JMPD) officers, who they also accuse of physically and verbally assaulting them.
Their ordeal involves the officers allegedly abandoning the woman close to an open veld near the Alexandra township, while her defenceless boyfriend was pulled from his car and arrested.
He was taken into custody for drinking and driving, but the officers did not conduct a breathalyser test to prove this.
His girlfriend, who did not want to be named, said the ordeal began in the early hours of last Wednesday, when the couple were returning from a charity function at Montecasino.
While driving along William Nicol Drive, the couple’s BMW was pulled over by four officers in two marked vehicles.
They approached the vehicle and accused the pair of drinking and driving.
“They insisted that that I take a breathalyser test even though I told them I wasn’t driving.”
The woman’s boyfriend then provided his driving licence when the officers told him to, but when he asked for their IDs, the officers refused.
After the couple’s request, the officers allegedly pulled the man out of the vehicle, handcuffed him and pushed him into the back of the police van, while the two male officers locked the woman inside her car and drove off.
“When I asked them where they were taking me, they told me to shut up, and the one covered my eyes with his hand,” the sobbing woman explained.
“When the officers eventually stopped the car, we ended up near a fenced open veld and the only thing near me was a big warehouse,” she said.
“They then ordered me to jump out of the car, locked it and took the keys and left me beside the vehicle and drove off with my boyfriend.”
Cold and alone, she sent a message to a WhatsApp group she and her boyfriend belong to.
One of the members responded, and using her phone to track her location, he picked her up and took her home to fetch a spare key so she could retrieve her car.
Another one of the couple’s friends drove around to police stations in the area in a desperate bid to find her boyfriend.
But at about 6am, four hours after the ordeal started, the woman’s boyfriend phoned her and told her that he was at the Sandringham police station.
“The only reason they let him phone me was because the officers changed shifts and the officers that locked him up left.”
She hadn’t yet fetched her car, and when she arrived at the police station she saw it had been taken there and was parked outside. The officers in charge would not give her the names of the group that allegedly harassed and assaulted them.
JMPD spokeswoman Edna Mamonyane said a case had been opened with them and that an internal investigation was under way.
The Star