Cop filmed beating woman
2013-04-12 15:21
The police force faced a fresh scandal today
after footage emerged of an off-duty officer hitting and kicking an unarmed
woman.
The security footage, broadcast by the eNCA
television channel, shows the man striking the woman to the ground at a petrol
station forecourt before launching a sustained assault.
Two uniformed officers are also filmed at the
scene, making modest, and ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to restrain their
colleague.
But the solidly built man strikes again and
chases the woman, kicking her. As she falls to the ground he stamps on her
head.
The two uniformed officers allow the man to leave
the scene without arrest.
The assault on the woman was filmed at a gas
station on April 5 shortly after 9pm (local time).
The man was identified as a warrant officer
in Smithfield, a small town in the Free State province.
He was in civilian clothes and arrived at the
station in a sedan car.
The incident is being probed by the country’s
police watchdog.
“We are investigating it,” Moses Dlamini, the
spokesperson for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) told
AFP.
It is the latest incident of South African
police brutality captured on film.
In February explosive footage emerged of a
Mozambican migrant taxi driver being dragged down a road while handcuffed
behind a police van. He later died in police custody.
Last year, police shot dead 34 striking
platinum mine workers, with some of the deaths caught on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmFuaE-U6iE
