Police in Cape Town used special constables disguised as street-cleaners to trap and arrest Bonteheuwel school pupils who were allegedly stoning passing vehicles this week. The action, reminiscent of the controversial "Trojan Horse" incident last year in which youths stoning vehicles were ambushedand shot by police hiding in a railway truck, was confirmed by police in Cape Town.
The SAP public relations division in Pretoria, approached for further comment, however, said the action fell within the ambit of Emergency regulations. Fifteen-year-old Leon Hayward, a Standard Six pupil at Modderdam High School received seven stitches in a wound in his forehead after he was struck by one of the special constables during the incident on Monday. He was one of four pupils arrested and held at Bishop Lavis police station before appearing in court on Wednesday on charges of public violence. They were released on bail of R200 each, lawyers confirmed.
Hayward told the Weekly Mail that when he came out of his classroom for a break at about 11am he saw a group of African men wearing off white overalls sweeping the street outside. He found this strange "because they never sweep that road". Standing near a gate, inside the school grounds, he watched as a bus drove by and a group of pupils outside the school yard stoned it. The men continued sweeping.
As the pupils moved back towards the gate the men closed it so they could not enter, Hayward said. The pupils scattered. The men opened the gate and entered the school grounds, sending pupils running. He was caught by one of the men, who hit him with a broom, causing him to fall, momentarily stunned. Then the men "grabbed me behind my neck and loaded me into a van," Hayward said. He and three others, who were not injured, were taken to Bishop Lavis police station and photographed. He was then taken to Tygerberg Hospital where his wound was stitched.
On his return to the police station he watched as a plain-clothes policeman "paid the men". Hayward said the policeman wrote out cheques ("I saw him writing out the amount – either R100 or R1 000") and handed one to each of three special constables wearing off-white overalls and armed with revolvers.
A teacher at the school said he saw men in "cream-coloured" overalls chasing pupils across Modderdam Road. He saw some of them leap over a wall to enter the school grounds. Immediately afterwards police vehicles pulled up. Another teacher said he saw a man in off-white overalls, revolver in hand, near the domestic science room. "He looked Iike he was looking for someone."
Lieutenant Attie Laubscher of the SAP public relations division in Cape Town confirmed that the men were special constables. He said children were throwing stones at school buses and vehicles and that, because they would run away when police tried to arrest them, special constables dressed in overalls to look like municipal workers were deployed to work in the road. "They came with the purpose of arresting the children," Laubscher said. Asked to comment on the suggestion that Hayward had seen the special constables being paid at the police station, Laubscher said this allegation was "laughable".
A spokesman for the SAP public relations division in Pretoria said: "We do not comment on routine police duties." Pupils at Bonteheuwel High School have meanwhile decided to re-name it, the Ashley Kriel Senior Secondary School – or AK Senior Secondary for short – in honour of the former pupil and student leader who joined the African National Congress and was shot deadby police three weeks ago.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail newspaper
