A new book entitled, “Thin Blue: The Unwritten Rules of Policing in South Africa” by Johnny Steinberg, uncovers the chilling truth behind the thin blue line that is often the only protection ordinary law-abiding citizens have from the country's hardened criminals.
According to the Pretoria News, Steinberg spent spent three to four shifts nearly every week for almost eight years in a police patrol van trawling the streets of Gauteng.
His quest was to find the truth regarding policing in South Africa.
Driven by his fascination of the police force's transition to democracy, Steinberg sought to establish how the police were taking to their new task of being a service that would protect all citizens from crime.
What is scary is that Steinberg found that it is not the police who control the criminals, but the criminals who dictate when, where and how they will be policed.
In the opening chapter: “Two Incidents, Juxtaposed”, Steinberg describes how he travels with constables K and N through the old mining town of Randfontein near downtown Johannesburg on a Saturday nightshift.
It is here that Steinberg witnesses how a group of seven young men dictate to the policemen about how they should carry out or rather not carry out their duties.
This comes after the policemen try to get a youngster in the group to return his father's bakkie, which he has stolen.
The tirade of abuse and deaths threats against Constable K's children that follows shows the youngsters' scant regard for the law.
"If they tried to arrest anybody, they would be overpowered, their guns taken from them,” said Steinberg.
"Nor could they get into their vehicle and drive away: an attempt to retreat would surely enrage the youths, and incite them to violence.”
The theme of criminals calling the shots when it comes to policing is a constant theme throughout the book.
In the chapters “To Newclare and Back and Sibanda of the Suburbs”, Steinberg looks at how communities, both poor and rich, are forced to defend themselves from criminals who outgun and outnumber the police.
The chapters highlight how community-based initiatives are trying to take back their streets from thugs because of the police's failure to do so.
"It is clear that the only real thing police are good at when it comes to gaining control of criminals is emergency situations such as the recent xenophobic violence and dealing with domestic violence."
Steinberg is adamant that until South Africa's communities give their consent to be policed they will be the ones that do the dictating on how policing in this country is done.
"The only way we are going to see that consent being granted is if there is a change and that change will have to come from police management. If effective change is to be seen in policing in South Africa then management are the ones that need to change and that change is a shift that has to be made."
Scary stuff don't you think?
Evening Newscasts an Obama Scandal-Free Zone; ABC Touts Obama as
‘Consoler-in-Chief’
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Not a syllable Friday or Saturday night on ABC, CBS or NBC about any of the
several Obama scandals, but on Saturday night ABC’s *World News* trumpeted ...
1 hour ago
3 Opinion(s):
Black SA judge allowed bias against Afrikaners to cloud his judgment in a murder trial... court finds
Sept 19 2008. BLOEMFONTEIN. Black SA judge-president Frans Kgomo -- tipped for a post at South Africa's highest court -- has been formally rebuked by a full bench of the Supreme Appeals Court for his 'biased handling' of a racially charged murder trial in Prieska, the Northern Cape.
In fact, the Supreme Court of Appeal bench's judges were so disturbed by Northern Cape Judge-President Kgomo's hostility and prejudice towards the Afrikaner man he had found guilty of stabbing 13-year-old Biron Phetlo to death with a sword -- that it quashed the Afrikaner's murder-conviction and his 24-year prison sentence.
Kgomo comes from Brits, north of Pretoria. He first worked as an interpreter and clerk in the former homeland of Bophuthatswana and was steadily advanced by the apartheid-era's justice system, eventually working his way up as a magistrate.
This decision by the Supreme Court of Appeals -- where he himself also is an acting judge -- also will have widespread legal repercussions:
Other decisions on his watch in the Northern Cape division would now, in light of this shock-judgment, also have to undergo high-level judicial reviews whenever Kgomo had resided:
See:
http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZANCHC/2008/
He also forced three northern-Cape schools to anglicise:
Kgomo had already shown his anti-Afrikaner bias when he ruled in Aug 2004 that three Afrikaans-medium schools had to anglicise in one of the most Afrikaans-speaking regions in the country.
The Kalahari High School and Seodin Primary School in Kuruman and the Noord-Kaapland Agricultural High School in Jan Kempdorp had challenged the education department 's decision to force English-speaking pupils into their school, which effectively has turned these schools into dual-medium educational facilities - and had lost their case thanks to the judge's decision.
The school's governing bodies had argued that it was their constitutional right to teach in the language of their choice - which indeed it is.
They also argued that not enough resources - teachers, money and classrooms - to execute dual medium education successfully in this overwhelmingly Afrikaans-speaking, low-income region could be provided and that all the pupils' educational standards would suffer as a result.
However, delivering what he said was his final judgment, Kgomo proclaimed that the Afrikaans parents' evidence, submitted to his court, that only Afrikaans-medium schools were targetted by the local provincial education department, had been "wrong and over-simplistic."
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1822506,00.html
He was preconceived, biased...
This week, five of the Supreme Court of appeal court's judges, led by Judge Nathan Ponnan, ruled unanimously that Judge Kgomo's approach to the Afrikaner defendant Joseph le Grange's murder trial was "certainly suggestive of one who has certain preconceived biases and allows those biases to affect his judgment".
Judge Kgomo, who was recently put forward by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has a possible Constitutional Court justice post and now serves as an acting Supreme Court of Appeal judge, had in their view, breached the most primary "canons of good judicial behaviour" and virtually taken over as a prosecutor, they said.
The Appeals Court judges ruled that the state could reinstate charges against Le Grange, his son Pieter and his son's friend Hendrik van der Westhuizen, who were convicted as accessories after the fact to the murder, as long as Judge Kgomo did "not take part in such proceedings".
It was the state's case that Le Grange had fatally stabbed Phetlo, a golf caddie, after he, his son and Van der Westhuizen had spotted the 13-year-old and his friend attempting to steal items from a sports shop.
According to Phetlo's 14-year-old friend Curtis Maritz's testimony, Pieter le Grange accused the boys of having previously stolen from a local greengrocer.
Curtis said Phetlo tried to flee but was prevented from doing so by Joseph le Grange, who pinned the boy back with his "sword cane".
Joseph le Grange then allegedly unsheathed the blade of his sword cane and stabbed Phetlo three times. Curtis claimed he had tried to get away to alert the police, but was prevented by Van der Westhuizen. He said the boys' three attackers then ran away.
Joseph le Grange has denied stabbing the boy, although he did confront him over his stealing. His testimony was supported by his son and Van der Westhuizen.
The appeal court bench found this week that Judge Kgomo appeared "at an early stage to have made up his mind that the state witnesses were telling the truth and (the Afrikaners, Joseph le Grange and his co-accused) were lying".
He asked leading questions to descredit the Afrikaners:
The appeal court noted that transcripts of the judge's cross-examination of the accused men was "replete with questions that were intended to discredit (the Afrikaner accused), compounded in many instances by disbelief and scepticism".
The appeal court also criticised Judge Kgomo for his furious reaction to the defence's suggestion that his little friend Maritz might have been responsible for Phetlo's death.
"On record there is absolutely no grain of evidence to remotely justify this suggestion," Judge Kgomo said. "All the accused have repeated this preposterous accusation in the reports to the social workers, the Correctional Services officer and the clinical psychologist.
"They did this despite my finding - showing why the accusation was absurd.
"I take a dim view of the fact that Curtis Maritz was accused by the accused of being the murderer. Counsel should not in good conscience have argued this point.
"I have no doubt that it is defamatory of Curtis Maritz and an aggravating factor against the accused," he had fumed from the bench...
According to the appeal court this week however, the judge's comments were not "suggestive of an open judicial mind".
Thursday's ruling was not Judge Kgomo's first brush with racism and controversy.
In 2006 he also ignited an acrimonious race row when he lodged an unsuccesful complaint with the JSC, demanding that judges Steven Majiedt and Hennie Lacock be axed for misconduct after they allegedly insulted him.
Kgomo will also be remembered for his judgements in two landmark cases dealing with same-sex equality.
The first case was Judge Kathy Satchwell who fought for the right of her same-sex partner to benefit from her pension payout.
He declared this unconstitutional and his judgment was confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
The second case was of the now world-famous SA sculptress and judge Anna-Marie de Vos, who sought an order declaring that lesbian couples might adopt children.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20080919055151520C410007
ALSO SEE: SA JUDGES IN THE DOCK:
http://www.mg.co.za/printformat/single/2008-09-07-judges-in-the-dock
Thanks censorbugbear
South Africa is just too dangerous and we should start a boycot action against WC2010. I've posted a new logo on http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com - feel free to use it, it's small enough to also upload as your Blog-identity picture.
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