white police constable charged by black senior officer who beat her up...
10:07 | Posted by Censorbugbear | | Edit Post
ShareAn indication of how badly-fractured the internal relations are between many white and black police officers in the SAPS these days, a white police-constable stood trial this week in an internal hearing, accused of being 'disrespectful of a senior officer by throwing her hands up in the air'. However, an unexpected statement from an independent witness was then submitted, whose testimony immediately cleared the young white constable -- and instead identified her black senior officer as the culprit: it was the black officer who according to this civilian witness, had shouted abuse and beaten the white constable over her back and head. the witness had been pulled over on May 28 2010 by constable Crewe and a colleague - and had witnessed the entire incident.
Constable Crewe's job was saved when Jan Sewata Sephlapela, the citizen she'd pulled over in a traffic check on May 28 last year, submitted his testimony at the young white constable's internal hearing, describing how the young white woman was beaten up and also loudly, crudely, verbally abused by Gen-maj F N Vuma, who is the chief of operational- and general support at the SAPS headquarter's crime-intelligence unit in Pretoria… (source: Hilda Fourie, Beeld).
Constable Crewe was forced to appear in the discliplinary hearing, charged by Vuma with 'behaving disrespectfully towards a senior officer for throwing her hands up in the air'. However the charge against her was immediately withdrawn, said her legal counsel Jack Gerber, after Sephlapela, submitted his description of what had really happened to constable Crewe. His statement was that constable Crewe was beaten over her neck and back by her supervisor Genl-Maj F N Vuma in an incident he witnessed when he had been pulled over in traffic by constable Crewe on May 28.
His testimony: "Gen-maj. Vuma screamed and yelled at constable Crewe, and assaulted her across her back and neck. That's when constable Crewe threw up her hands in the air (in exasperation)." Vuma had shown up at the scene - being managed by Constable Crew and another colleague -- on 28 May 2010 because Sephlapela 'had seemed suspect', according to Vuma's testimony. To protect herself and her colleague as required, Crewe had by then already ordered Mr Sephlapela to lie on the ground.
However Vuma stormed in with another colleague and intervened by ordering the 'suspect man' to stand back up again. Vuma apparently 'already had it in for Crewe' as the senior police officer and the young constable had already had a run-in a day before, said her legal counsel. Sephlapela 's testimony was that it was at this point, that Vuma had screamed and yelled at the young constable, and beat her over her back and continued to verbally abuse her in loud, foul language. After yesterday's unexpected testimony, the internal-charges against constable Crewe were immediately dropped, and the white constable now is considering lodging civil charges against Vuma, said her legal counsel. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Klag-laat-vaar-nadat-verdagte-man-praat-20110323 http://tinyurl.com/5v7cmd2
