An internal investigation has been completed into the conduct of South African Police Service officers at an accident scene near King William’s Town earlier this month where a truck carrying 211 pigs had overturned.
Onlookers apparently stormed the truck following the accident on Alice and Middledrift roads on August 5 and killed the pigs — of which some were still alive — for meat. It was alleged that while onlookers were helping themselves to the free meat, there were police officers at the scene who did not take any action.
“Animals were gutted while they were alive. They were stabbed and their hindquarters hacked at. It is the most horrific savagery I have ever experienced,” said Annette Rademeyer, the spokesperson of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in King William’s Town, at the time.
Rademeyer claimed that police officers also stole some of the animals. “Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, some members of the police deliberately removed number plates from their official vehicles and loaded animals in the vans to steal them,” she said.
The SPCA then filed a complaint about the unknown police officers’ misconduct with the provincial commissioner’s office. Director Marinda Mills, the Eastern Cape provincial police spokesperson, said the commissioner’s office was shocked to hear of the allegations.
“This is certainly not how police officers in the Eastern Cape act. It is not the norm, and is totally unacceptable if found to be true,” she said.
Rademeyer told the Mail & Guardian Online on Monday that the SPCA is still waiting for a response from the commissioner’s office. “We filed a complaint to both the provincial commissioner and the Interdependent Complaints Directorate [ICD] and we are still waiting to hear what measures of discipline will be taken against those policemen, if any.”
She also said a charge of stock theft had been laid against some of the onlookers who killed pigs at the scene of the accident and that the Grahamstown stock-theft unit was investigating.
However, the Daily Dispatch on Monday quoted Mills as saying she did not know anything about the stock-theft investigation. “Maybe the SPCA opened a case with the police; we are just investigating the allegations against the police,” she said.
The ICD, which is investigating the conduct of the police officers at the scene, said that it had finished its work. “The investigations have been finalised. We will report to the provincial commissioner as soon as possible,” said the provincial head of the ICD, Sakhele Phoswa.
He also told the M&G Online that the ICD could not reveal anything about the contents of the report until the provincial commissioner had seen it and given the go-ahead on its disclosure.