Eight South African Police Aressted in Drag Death

I watched the report and video yesterday on CNN and was appalled at the brutality and and inhuman treatment of tieing a man to a police van and dragging him through the streets for hours in the full glare of the public while people watched in horor?This was because the 27 year old taxi driver had  parked wrongly.Wonder what they would have done if he had committed a more heinous crime like mistakenly killing your girlfriend thinking she was an intruder...

South Africa police has been under intense scrutiny after South Africa's police are under scrutiny after the media took them to shreds for August last year for shooting into a crowd of mine protesters who were armed mostly with machetes and sticks and shot dead 34 miners.The investigation is still pendingfor other cases of violence, such as the Aug. 16 shooting into a crowd of mine protesters armed mostly with machetes and sticks, which left 34 people dead. An inquiry into that incident is continuing. 

 

Its credibility was also in question when the lead investigator in Oscar Pistorius's  murder case  was removed from the case due to pending murder charges against him.

 

Police credibility is fast declining in South Africa following Mido Marcia's shocking death which was captured in a phone footage by an bystander.The video  went viral and led to the arrest of eight police men.They were suspended from active duty and disarmed by the country's police commissioner, and will appear in the Daveyton Magistrate's Court on Monday, said Moses Dlamini, a spokesman for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, a government arm that investigates potential criminal offenses by police. The video showed four police officers strapping the man's wrists to a bench inside a police van. Two police officers then stood behind the van holding his feet as the vehicle started to move, before dropping the man's feet on the ground and allowing him to be dragged along the pavement.
The video couldn't be independently verified, but police and the watchdog haven't denied the accuracy of what was recorded in daylight before a crowd of people.
South Africa's ruling African National Congress said that witnesses should come forward and assist with the investigation and that "where police brutality is evident stern action should be taken."

Public anger grew after the video was aired on television.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate said a postmortem showed the cause of death to be head injuries and internal bleeding. It also noted other unspecified injuries. The arrested policemen are being held in an unnamed police station. He said "What is in the video is not how the South African police…goes about its work."
"It's obvious that Mido Macia's rights were violated in the most extreme way," Ms. Phiyega,the Police Commissioner said. "The behavior of the suspended members is condemned…in the strongest terms."
Ms. Phiyega also said the station commander at Daveyton has been removed from his post as the police watchdog and the police service each carry out an investigation.
An attorney speaking for the Mozambican consulate said the taxi driver's death was''horrible''

The chaiperson for Benoni Taxi  Association,Jafta Ndlovu, said the suspension of the police men was not good enough.

''I just want to see justice served.They can throw away the keys.This is barbaric''

President Jacob Zuma described the incident as ''horrific'' and ''unacceptable''.

 

 The fact that police did this quite openly . . . is an example of the culture of impunity which has taken root in our public service,” said Mamphela Ramphele, an academic and activist who recently launched a new political movement to contest next year’s elections. “Some members of the police – who are no longer a service but a force, as they were under apartheid – are behaving with unbelievable callousness.”

 

The South African Police Service expressed "extreme shock and outrage" at the mobile phone footage.
"From the video which has gone viral, it is obvious that the rights of Mido Macia were violated in the most extreme form," it said in a statement,
"The behaviour displayed in that video, when it is committed by police who are expected to serve and protect, is to be abhorred," it added.
 Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega thanked people for revealing "callous and unacceptable behaviour".
 A crowd of women gathered at the police station where Mido died chanting old anti-apartheid liberation songs and derogatory slogan.

The number of police-related deaths last year totaled 797, more than double levels from a decade earlier, according to figures from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.