Pretoria - A pre-Easter shopping experience turned sour at the Gezina Galleries shopping centre on Wednesday after two women got into a scuffle over parking space, resulting in a vehicle tyre allegedly being deflated by one of the women.
An eyewitness said the two women were exchanging racial and defamatory slurs, while trying to secure the same parking space.
“They screamed at each other while hooting and trying to get to the same parking space. They caused a whole lot of commotion.”
Eventually one managed to secure the parking space and went inside the mall to do her shopping.
According to another eyewitness, minutes after the woman went inside the mall, the other woman walked to her car and started deflating her tyre. This was by fiddling with the tyre valve. “I approached her asking what she was doing. She swore at me and sped off,” the witness said.
Tumi Banda, the owner of the VW with the deflated tyre, was dismayed on returning to her vehicle. “As I was walking to the car park, a man approached me and told me what happened. He explained that it was the same lady I had an argument with earlier,” said Banda.
She waited hours on end for the police to arrive at the scene after calling them and eventually went to the Pretoria Moot police station to report the matter. “The police tracked the perpetrator and asked her to come to the station. She said she had no petrol,” Banda explained.
The Pretoria Moot police station did not open a case on the grounds that Banda had tampered with the evidence. She expressed her disappointment in the justice system. “I had to pump the tyre before going to the police station. But as soon as I got there I was told I tampered with the evidence.”
Pretoria News