City of Cape Town slams ANC's comments over cop's assault of disabled man
- The ANC took the City of Cape Town to task over an incident involving the metro police and a disabled man
- JP Smith slammed the ANC over its criticism reminding them of their own record with the SAPS
- He also called them out for the glaring factual error that they made in their statement
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The ANC has received a tongue lashing from JP Smith over comments it made over the recent assault of a disabled man at the hands of metro police officers.
An incident involving a disabled man being thrown of his char was caught on camera earlier this week.
The cause of the altercation is unknown. The ANC is demanding that Mayor Dan Plato and Smith take responsibility for the incident. They published the following statement:
“We are shocked by this cruelty, which reminds us of the human rights abuses of the apartheid police. We have seen other examples of this callousness from the Metro Police, which is led by a person who cut his teeth in the old police force,” the ANC said.
“Just like the apartheid police, the metro police behaves with impunity.”
“They, as well as former policeman Robbie Robberts, who heads the Metro Police, must step down immediately. We also call on the Human Rights Commission to investigate this atrocity immediately.”
Smith struck back:
“The City does not condone the behaviour of the officers in the video, regardless of what the context might have been."
“It is for this reason that our executive director, Richard Bosman, has suspended the two Metro Police officers while the full investigation takes place. The City confirms that it's leadership had addressed the matter with urgency and will continue to do so.”.
He also took them to task for getting their facts wrong,:
“Aside from the fact that the incorrect official is identified as running the Metro Police, the bigger problem is that the few incidents every year of complaints against the conduct of the Traffic, Law Enforcement or Metro Police officials pales by comparison to the absolutely frightening statistics presented by the Independent Police Investigations Directorate (IPID) in relation to SAPS with more than 828 incidents of police brutality, murder, rape, assault and other serious crimes committed by the national police service under the control of the ANC, reported in just 40 days during a portion of their recent lockdown,” Smith said.
Source: Twitter
He also brought up the city's disciplinary record which has shown that according to Smith, matters are dealt with swiftly and which he contends is very different from the rest of the country.
The two metro police officers have disgraced their uniforms after being caught on camera abusing a disabled man.
The mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato, has apologised for the behaviour of the officers. They were filmed throwing the helpless man out of his wheelchair during a confrontation.
Both officers have been suspended while an investigation is carried out by the City of Cape Town.
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that Economic Freedom Fighter Deputy President Floyd Shivambu has posted a clip to social media that has everyone's eyebrows raising.
In the video, a disabled man can be seen having an altercation with police officials over an unknown issue.
From the start of the clip, one policeman can be viewed with his boot on the man's wheel, preventing him from going anywhere.
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Source: Briefly News
