/ 20 July 2009

Car-chase video not for real, say cops

While crime is no laughing matter, there is an action-packed and slightly comical video that has been posted on YouTube, showing a high-speed police pursuit that purportedly takes place on the streets of South Africa.

The video, which has been on YouTube for a while now, seems to have only recently caused a stir when it made its appearance on the local website, Ideate.

However, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has denied that the video, labelled
”South African Police Pursuit”, is authentic.

The police pursuit in the video is reminiscent of a Desperado flick, except there is no stallion, rather a stolen bakkie and a BMW cop car.

In the video, the stolen bakkie speedily attempts to evade the chasing police. Employing some exceptional car-manoeuvring tactics, a Ninja-like officer bravely and effortlessly jumps on to the offending bakkie and muscles the suspect, eventually throwing him out of the moving vehicle.

”Nowhere does the video audio say that the car chase is taking place in South Africa. There has just been a banner placed on top of it to locate it to South Africa,” says the SAPS’s Dennis Adriao.

He says the video was not taken in South Africa and there are obvious giveaways.

”The video was posted three years ago, and we were not using those BMW’s back then. The number plates also are not South African,” he says.