The brutal death of Mthokozisi Ntumba – at this stage, still allegedly – at the hands of the South African Police Service (Saps) last week, has brought the issue of police brutality in South Africa to an ugly head. Sadly, not for the first time, and in all likelihood, not for the last.
Ntumba was leaving his doctor’s rooms last Wednesday when, it appears, he became caught in the crossfire of a clash between police and protesting students. Widely circulated footage of the incident paints the former in a damning light, at least preliminarily, and shows the police firing rubber ammunition at what looks to be lethal close range at him.
Ntumba worked for the City of Tshwane as a human settlements planner and had recently obtained a master’s degree. He leaves behind a wife and four children – the youngest of whom is less than a year old.
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News of his death has sent shockwaves through the nation.
Last August, Nathaniel Julies – a 16-year-old boy with Down’s Syndrome – was shot and killed outside his home in Eldorado Park, also allegedly by police. And last April, Alexandra father Collins Khosa died, allegedly after a vicious assault at the hands of soldiers over a half-full cup of alcohol that was found in his yard during the early stages of the national lockdown.
In 2013, Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia was also murdered by police officers, who dragged him through the streets of Daveyton on the East Rand, behind the back of their van; and in 2012, police officers in Marikana opened fire on a crowd of striking workers and killed 34 of them in the most lethal use of force by the country’s security forces against civilians since the Soweto uprising.
A year earlier, in 2011, Andries Tatane was also shot and killed during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg.
South Africa is a violent country and the constitutionally mandated task of Saps – to prevent, combat and investigate crime; maintain public order; and protect and secure her inhabitants – is a mammoth one, which places its members in the most invidious situations on a day-to-day basis.
But the approach it appears was adopted in Braamfontein last week – and in so many other instances, like those detailed above – is one in line with the apartheid-era notion of a police “force”.
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It is not one in line with the “services” envisioned in our post-liberation constitutional order. It is also not an effective one and only serves to further entrench the deep-seated mistrust the public already has in the police. And yet it’s an approach that persists.
We cannot accept this in a democratic society. We must demand more. And that starts with demanding justice.
Nine years after the Marikana massacre, no one has as of yet been called to account for the events of that day – save for officers who are facing relatively minor charges over their alleged attempts to cover up one victim’s death and lying under oath at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry.
Almost one year after Khosa’s death, meanwhile, the investigation has only now been wrapped up and the docket handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to make a decision.
We must demand justice – both sure and swift – for victims of police violence and for Ntumba.
This innocent man appears – on the information publicly available at least – to have been the victim of the most egregious kind of abuse of state power imaginable and anything less would only serve to fuel the impunity with which this abuse is being perpetuated.
Bernadette Wicks.
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