Hearing shouting from outside our office in Vermeulen Street and colleagues yelling that a man was being attacked by a mob, I grabbed my cameras and ran downstairs.
Coming out of the building I saw a police van and two policemen holding a handcuffed man whom they were taking into the back of their vehicle.
I ran between onlookers and the policemen and started taking pictures of the suspect as the police were putting him into the back of their van.
As I was taking photographs one policeman looked at me and then called out at his colleague that I had a camera and was taking pictures. He shouted that I should be arrested.
They didn’t say anything to me but simply grabbed me, pulling me towards the back of the van as they tried to grab my camera, which I refused to let go of.
One of the policemen grabbed me around the neck and tackled me to the ground, kicking me as I tried to stay on my feet.
The policeman who held me around my throat and choked me screamed at me not to move as he knelt on my chest pinning me to the tarmac.
I refused to lie still and tried to get back onto my feet as he swore while throttling me.
As my colleagues arrived to help me, the policeman suddenly let go, but kept following me while his colleague tried to stop my workmates from helping to spirit me away.
Pushing his finger into my face he tried to grab my camera again.
I managed to get behind my colleagues and started taking pictures of the policemen who were now, with hands on their guns, confronting my colleagues.
I saw more police cars arriving as back-up. A security guard from our office called me and told me to get into the building, but as I turned to walk to the office the other back-up officers ran at me and grabbed me pulling me towards their vans.
When they asked me where I was going I said I was going back to the office. Suddenly a number of policemen charged at me and my colleagues.
While we fought to keep the gates closed, several officers managed to force their way into the offices through the front main entrance, while others tried to overpower the guards at the driveway gate.
They pushed me against a wall and while several police held my colleagues back, another yelled at me that he was going to arrest me and that he didn’t care. He said even if we called the police commissioner he was still going to arrest me. I managed to run inside the building where I hid my camera and flashcard in a dustbin. A colleague ran to me and said police were trying to get into the building to search for me.
I ran and hid in the bathroom, the only place I thought that they would not search.
When it happened at first I thought the policeman was joking.
When I hid in the bathroom it struck me that I was hiding away from cops who wanted to arrest me for doing my job.
All I was doing was taking pictures of a suspect who was being shoved into a police car by policemen who were doing their job, and saving the life of someone who could have been killed in a mob justice frenzy. - Pretoria News