DURBAN - Police have launched an urgent investigation into a video circulating on social media platforms which shows police officers roughly forcing a girl, who is dressed in a school uniform, into an unmarked car.
On Thursday, Gauteng police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza said Gauteng police management Gauteng had noted the video, with concern.
In the video, the pupil is sitting on the edge of the pavement, kicking and screaming as a police officer in uniform, wearing a face covering, picks her up and pins her against a silver unmarked vehicle, before he pushes her into the car. Another officer is seen closing the door before they drive away while another learner watches the incident unfold.
“The Acting Provincial Commissioner, Major General DT Mthombeni, has subsequently sanctioned an urgent departmental investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident that allegedly happened on the streets in the CBD in Krugersdorp on Tuesday, 03 August 2021,” he said.
Kweza said police had established that the 18-year-old pupil was taken to Krugersdorp police station and subsequently released on the same day, unharmed, into the care of her mother.
“The members captured on the video have been identified and the departmental investigation is under way,” he said.
Police confirmed that the vehicle captured on the video is a state vehicle and that the members were on duty conducting routine patrols at the time.
Kweza said any measures that would be taken would be guided by the outcome of the investigation.
“The Acting Provincial Commissioner has reaffirmed the SAPS’s zero-tolerance approach to gender-based violence and hence the call for the departmental investigation to be treated with the necessary sensitivity and urgency,” he said.
THE MERCURY