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Too much police bungling

THE response to the failure of the US grand jury to charge in the killing of a defenceless black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, touched something deep and angered many people in the black community of Ferguson, Missouri.

This anguish spread quickly to other parts of the US and the globe, with hundreds of people demonstrating outside the US embassy in London condemning the decision not to charge.

However, no incident was reported in South Africa, once notorious for its police brutality and violent racial discrimination. I personally do not believe that widespread racial clashes will happen in South Africa anytime soon.

But this does not mean that President Jacob Zuma’s government should relax. It could have a bigger problem on its hands that it is not aware of.

In addition to being disgruntled by the increase in the crime rate, South Africans of all hues are deeply unhappy that police are bungling major crime investigations, prompting the courts to drop the charges in shocking murder cases.

In the past month South Africa has had two high-profile murder charges dropped against alleged suspects.

In yet another embarrassment for the South African justice system, the suspected murderer of four-year-old Taegrin Morris was released from custody earlier this month.

This enraged the Reiger Park community which was gathered outside the Boksburg Magistrate's Court, with many in the crowd threatening to kill suspect Thamsanqa Twala and his children.

The little boy met his senseless death three months ago when he was dragged for kilometres while hanging from the side of his mother’s hijacked car. Police arrested Twala as the prime suspect in the hijacking and murder case.

According to media reports, no reasons were given for the withdrawal of charges, and Twala himself did not appear in court, prompting further angry protests from the volatile community members.

When news emerged on October 26 of Bafana Bafana captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa’s death, South Africans called for the killer’s head on a platter.

Here, too, people were stunned when charges were withdrawn against the only suspect the police arrested in the killing of Meyiwa, as reported in the Johannesburg-based daily, The Citizen.

South Africans were left feeling cheated, with headlines screaming that police were “left red-faced” after “bungling” the investigation, the daily added.

“People have to remember it is not the job of the police to prosecute,” The Citizen quoted police spokesperson Brigadier Neville Malila as saying. “It was the job of the police to gather evidence and present that to the prosecutor, who then makes a decision on whether to prosecute.”

Many more cases could slip under the radar

These are only two high-profile cases that we know of. But there is no doubt that investigations could be bungled in small towns in far-flung corners of the country. We do not know about them, because these areas are not under the media spotlight.

In a country with a history of violence and the killing of police informers in the most brutal of ways, the failure by the police to find murderers and child rapists could bring the country back to the days of kangaroo courts where communities take the law into their own hands.

In addition to this, the country could experience widespread violent demonstrations, with destruction of property and people killed. This is too ghastly to contemplate.

President Zuma and his cohorts, in this case the department of justice and the police services, need to be aware that patience does come to an end.

The heart can be ripped apart many times before crap hits the fan. The government must be advised that when cries for justice go unheard too often, violence erupts.

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