Suicide in police van
June 12 2015 at 07:41am
By Rabbie Serumula and Karishma Dipa
Independent
Med
iaFile
picture: Bongani Shilubane
Johannesburg - Yet another man has died in police custody – this time a
domestic violence suspect, who police say used his shoelaces to kill himself.
Locked up in the back of a police van outside the couple’s Douglasdale
home, the man is said to have made a noose with his shoelaces, hanging himself
while police officers were taking a statement from his wife.
His death comes just a week after two other men died in police custody,
one in Daveyton on Monday and the other in Diepkloof on Tuesday last week.
Douglasdale police spokesman Warrant Officer Balan Muthan said on
Thursday that a neighbour had called the police to the couple’s home in the
early hours of Tuesday. When the police arrived, they had put the man in the
back of the van to separate him from his wife.
While the officers were taking a statement from the man’s wife, he
somehow made a noose with his shoelaces and hanged himself.
Muthan said the husband had not been arrested but rather detained for
his and others’ safety, and for the questioning to run smoothly.
He said the man was not handcuffed. “You can’t have a police officer
with him at the back of the van. If he was put at the back of a police car,
instead of a van, he would have been handcuffed because it is easy to open the
car doors.”
The case has been handed over to the Independent Police Investigative
Directorate.
Last week, another man died in police custody a day after he was
detained at the Diepkloof police cells in Soweto following a shootout with
police.
He died on Tuesday morning after he was served breakfast.
Another was a Mozambican, who was found dead in the Daveyton,
Ekurhuleni, police cells on Monday last week after he was arrested for being
drunk in public in Etwatwa near Daveyton.
Police said Justice Malati was certified dead in the cells and they did
not suspect foul play.
But relatives and neighbours told The Star they believed Malati was
beaten up while in custody, and that his neck and face were swollen. He also
had blood on the back of his head, said neighbour Poti Bheziya.
But this version was disputed by Gauteng police spokesman
Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, who said police had received information
that Malati allegedly banged his head against the cell wall before he went to
sleep on Sunday night.
Dlamini said at the time that an investigation was under way.
When The Star arrived at the Douglasdale house on Thursday night, the
man’s relatives were too distraught to speak. Community police forum chairman
Jean Berdou said the incident had left the man’s family and the police officers
at the scene traumatised.
“Both the family of the deceased and the officers will be receiving
detailed trauma counselling.”
Berdou’s version of events corroborated that of the police.
“After talking to the wife, they (the officers) opened the back of the
van so that they could take a statement from the man, but were shocked to find
him dead with a noose made from his own shoelaces tied around his neck,” said
Berdou. – Additional reporting by Kgopi Mabotja
rabbie.serumula@inl.co.za
karishma.dipa@inl.co.za
The Star
