‘This is police brutality’
YOUTUB
Cellphone footage shows a
bus driver being manhandled by metro police officers.
Johannesburg - Two Joburg women were left “shaken”
and infuriated after metro cops allegedly thrust them into the back of their
van for speaking out as they dragged a Metrobus driver out of his bus.
The cops’ actions were triggered by the bus being
steered in a dedicated Rea Vaya bus lane.
The mother and daughter were arrested and held for
nearly six hours onday following the 7am incident.
Michele Selling and her daughter, TerchéJardine,
were on a Metrobus from Fleurhof in Joburg south, on their way to their
respective workplaces in Parktown and Auckland Park, when their bus was stopped
by Joburg metro police department (JMPD) officers.
The pair said the officers told the driver to
either pay a fine on the spot or they would arrest him. When he refused to pay,
they threw him on the floor of the bus to arrest him.
“We said ‘What are you arresting him for? We’re not
getting off the bus because we’ve paid and how are we going to get to
work?’,”Jardine said.
Jardine, right, and her
mother, Michelle Selling, outside the Sophiatown police station after they were
released. Picture: MotshwariMofokengINDEPENDENT
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“They weren’t concerned about the passengers,”
Selling added.
Cellphone footage The Star has seen shows several
passengers arguing with the officers as they struggled to arrest the driver.
The two-and-a-half minute cellphone footage –
filmed by another passenger on the bus – starts with the driver splayed on the
floor of the vehicle with two male JMPD officers trying to handcuff him.
It is difficult to see exactly what the two
officers are doing in the footage, because of the angle it is being recorded
at, but it appears they are struggling to subdue the driver and get handcuffs
on him.
A third JMPD officer then joins in and appears to
get the cuffs onto the driver’s right wrist, before they pull him up on his
feet.
The situation becomes tense as the driver appears
to lash out at one of the officers with his hand, but the officer dodges the
swipe.
This seems to be the last straw for the three
officers. The video ends as they forcefully push the driver off the bus.
The woman JMPD officer who allegedly arrested
Selling and her daughter can be seen in the video shouting at the passengers, many
of whom have their cellphones out.
“You can shoot (film), whatever you want to do, you
can record us. We’re doing our jobs here. Shoot, take it to the Daily Sun. We
are arresting you,” she said.
Another officer can be heard saying: “We spoke to
the driver nicely.”
“Nicely?” comes a chorus of replies from several
passengers.
“That was not nice,” a woman passenger said.
Officers and passengers continue to argue loudly
during the rest of the video.
“Hello, people help us, everybody stop your cars,”
one woman calls to motorists passing the bus.
“This is police brutality,” another passenger
commented, followed by another who said: “This is disgusting, disgusting! How
can you do this?”
One of the passengers then asks why other vehicles
using the Rea Vaya lane are not being targeted.
When the driver was eventually pulled off the
vehicle, Selling and Jardine walked to another bus stop to continue on their
journey.
About 15 minutes after they left the bus, a woman
JMPD officer allegedly pointed at them and said to fellow officers “Arrest the
white women”, which they said upset them as they had done nothing wrong.
They also questioned why they were referred to as
white.
“I hit my head and jaw because they lifted me from
my feet and threw me into the van,” Jardine said.
Speaking outside the Sophiatown police station
nearly six hours after their arrest, Selling said she was “a bit shaken”.
Sophiatown police spokesman Warrant Officer Jerbes
de Bruyn confirmed the two women were charged with interfering with a JMPD
officer’s duties.
JMPD spokesman Wayne Minnaar also confirmed it, but
would not comment on allegations the women were arrested for challenging the
officers.
He said this would “form part of the investigation”
and could also not confirm if the driver was arrested for driving in a Rea Vaya
lane.
“I think the bus driver was released on a warning.
At this stage I cannot confirm the reason why the officers stopped the bus
driver or why they wanted to issue him with a traffic fine,” Minnaar said.
Allegations of wrongful arrest would also be
investigated, he added.
Metrobus spokeswoman Esther Dreyer said they would
investigate the matter, but could not comment further at the time of
publication.
Selling and Jardine were expected to appear in the
Sophiatown Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
brendan.roane@inl.co.za
The Star
