Disabled Cape Town man: Cop
told me to ‘voetsek’
2015-02-16 14:41
Lauren Hess, News24
Cape Town – A Cape Town mother has laid a
charge against police after her son, who is physically disabled, was allegedly
assaulted by a police officer on Friday night.
Tas Rashed told News24 that her 19-year-old
son, who is deaf and has a rare bone disorder, was arrested by an officer who
assaulted and verbally abused him.
The son, who wishes to remain anonymous, said
in a statement that he was driving on his scooter down De Wet Road in Grassy
Park on Friday afternoon when he noticed a police van following him. He turned
left as directed by the traffic lights and soon after the police van signalled
to him to pull over.
“I immediately pulled over... and the police
van screeched to a halt in front of me cutting me off. I switched my [scooter]
off and took off my helmet.
“As I was getting off my [scooter] the driver
of the police van came running over to me. He was verbally abusing me shouting
‘jou naai, jou poes, voetsek’ and other abusive things.
“He pulled me, tearing my shirt and pushed me
up against the police van where he smacked me twice across the side of my head
by my ear and started hitting me in the ribs. He proceeded to search me and my
schoolbag which was still on my back,” said the young man.
Fined for
disobeying traffic light
He said the officer pulled him off his
scooter while continuing to spit obscenities at him.
After pushing over the man’s scooter, the
policeman dragged him to the back of the police van and threw him inside. He
said the officer had still not told him why he was being apprehended.
The officer later told him he was being
arrested “because I drove away from them when they were trying to pull me off.
I said I heard no siren and saw no emergency lights. He said he was hooting at
me”.
When he asked the officer why he hit him, the
policeman said he hadn’t hit him and said “as ek jou will gemoer het sal jy nou
vrek gewees het [if I wanted to hurt you then you’d be dead now]”.
The young man said the officer fined him R500
for “disobeying a red traffic light”.
Rashed said her son is a “skinny kid” and he
was chucked into the van “like a bag of bones”.
Despite his disabilities, Rashed said her son
“has fought against all odds to be able to be a normal functioning human being.
He was adamant to try mainstream education... [in] high school”.
“My son has been taught all his life that
hard work, honesty and doing the right thing will [make him] prosper. This
incident has now affected him adversely and he is questioning all that he has
been taught.”
Rashed said the case has been sent directly
to provincial commissioner General Arno Lamoer’s office and has given her
details to the Independent Police Directorate (IPID).
“Once this office receives a report from the
Grassy Park police, we shall then be in a position to give comment thereto,”
police spokesperson Colonel Tembinkosi Kinana said in a statement to News24.
Attempts by News24 to get comment from the
IPID were unsuccessful at the time of publishing.
- This article
was updated at 15:23 with comment from Colonel Kinana.
