Cops in hot water after SABC report

A police task team has been appointed to investigate corruption after an exposé on SABC television on Tuesday night showing police officers harassing prostitutes in Johannesburg.

"We view the allegations in a serious light. At the moment we will be investigating corruption," said Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.

SABC's Special Assignment showed police openly demanding and taking bribes from sex workers and their clients in Oxford Street in Rosebank and in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg.

The bribes, dubbed "spot fines", were as much as R1 000 and up to R30 000 could be made by crooked police officers in one month, Special Assignment said.

Some police officers demanded sex from them
According to the sex workers who were filmed, some police officers demanded sex from them and would continuously harass them. Some sex workers reported being assaulted by police officers. At least seven police officers were bribed during the making of the programme.

"As long as they (sex workers) give us enough information to act on we will definitely investigate," said Martins-Engelbrecht. She urged the women to call Crime-Stop number 08600-10111 to report police harassment and corruption.

She told Sapa no one had yet been arrested as the police officers filmed by spy camera in the programme first had to be identified.

Gauteng deputy police commissioner Bushie Engelbrecht said it was "embarrassing" to see colleagues in uniform behaving in such a manner. - Sapa

And this suprises anybody?????? I mean what do we expect from this corrupt goverment?

This brings to mind an interesting question, who polices the police. Can we as South African tax payers really be expected to believe that this will be investigated fairly. I don’t think so !!! If 7 cops accepted bribes I sincerely think this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Not being funny or anything but seven in one night???? I mean How do you even get 7 cops in the same area in one night so obviously something is fishy there.

Lets not fool around if seven can be bribed in one night how many rapist, molestors and murderers are walking out there because they got off with paying a couple of grand!!

I bribed a south African cop once. When I was about 19 or 20 years old, some friends and I were arrested for having some dagga on us. At that point, I haven’t yet had SA’ citizenship, and I knew I was in good. I knew if my dad finds out, I will be in beeeeg trouble, and so the easiest thing for me was to just bribe them. It worked, and the cops weren’t even blacks.

But bribery is a common thing in SA. I have been present once when a lady friend of mine was being deported back to China. I had to act as interpreter for the immigration guys, even though I know she speaks English well. She offered the two officials R50 000.00 and they let her go. Two weeks later, she bought a SA id from these same two guys.

But this happen in Australia and the US too.
King Joe

I am not arguing that point it will happen everywhere but i do not believe that it is as wide spread as in SA.

I would be interested to hear from any of the ladies that advertise on the site, or indeed, from Sally, if they are harassed for bribes.
George

I feel that it is a good thing that issues like these get highlighted, but although the policemen in question are black and affirmative action has worked its way through the SAPD, those are not the reasons why this takes place.

I was in the SAP about 20 years ago and exactly the same practice was common place even then. I should mention that it was not all policemen who took part in the practice, but rather a few bad apples.

I believe that there are still some good, honest cops out there, but my dealings with them during the past few years have shown these to be few and far between.

I often see how policemen are picking up ladies on street corners and presumably taking them to the cop station and it always cross my mind that the police are targetting the soft targets instead of looking for elements who are a real menace to society!

I presume the saying while I was still in the SAP still holds true - SAP stands for Soek altyd P@*s, P@*s altyd Swart(of Skaars)