SAMWU Condemns Attack on JMPD Officer in Alex

23 October 2019

SAMWU Condemns Attack on JMPD Officer in Alex

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) in the Gauteng Province has noted with disgust a video that has since gone viral which shows a female Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) officer being attacked by two male individuals outside Pan Africa Mall in Alexandra.

As seen in the video, despite attempts by fellow colleagues to restrain the two individuals, they continually assault the officer until she falls on the ground. The officer was later rushed to hospital following the injuries which she sustained during the brutal assault.

Despite being in the company of other officers who were all on duty, the assault continued on the officer. It may seem as though other officers may have tried to exercise restraint in order to defuse and not escalate the situation. We however believe that more should have been done to protect the life and dignity of the officer and exercising such restraint may be interpreted as a sign of weakness by criminals.

We urge members of the public not to interfere with law enforcement officers executing their duties, no matter how uncomfortable they are with the execution of such duties. JMPD officers are here to serve and protect the 5 million residents of the City by enforcing by-laws and also ensuring that residents of the City are safe at all times.

We further commend the swiftness of JMPD in returning to the scene and arresting two suspects linked to the assault. We would want to see the full might of the law being applied to these suspects so a message is sent out to others that assault will and cannot be tolerated against law enforcement officers.

Issued SAMWU Gauteng Province

Bafana Zungu
Provincial Secretary
083 615 3571

Or

Anna Ntuli
Deputy Provincial Secretary
082 653 6443