A Cape Flats cop is in trouble after he was filmed beating a Bokmakierie man and using a taser, which is not issued by police.
Bevan Hermans, 39, claims he was viciously attacked by a sergeant from Athlone Police Station during a riot on Sunday afternoon.
Now residents in Bokmakierie are calling for the “crazy cop” to be investigated and removed from the force amid claims that he smokkels with gangsters and threatens people who try to report him. A mom, who asked not to be named, says shortly after 3pm, gunshots rang out.
“Two gangs have been fighting, now the residents are standing with the gangsters and were fighting each other and small children were throwing stones,” the woman says.
Bevan says he heard the commotion in 11th Avenue and went to see what was happening.
VICTIM: Bevan Hermans, 39, was seriously injured. PHOTO: SUPPLIED.
“They dragged a guy who was sleeping out of his house and when I said to the cop that man was sleeping, he then attacked me,” says Bevan.
“He beat me up and tasered me three times and then he arrested me.
“At the station he banged my head against a wall, threw me across the counter and hit me over and over.”
In three videos of the incident in the street, the officer is seen hitting Bevan and using his taser as an onlooker shouts: “Maak ’* video van die * ***”.
The cop responds: “F** julle video! Julle wil ons mos aanval! F** julle.”
Bevan was charged with riotous behaviour and fined R50.
“He told me that if I make a case against him, he will open a case against me. He told me he is taking the docket home with him,” says Bevan.
“I went home to sleep because I was in pain. Then he came to my house and took me back to the station and beat me and then he let me go.”
VIDEO: Still shots of the attack on Bevan in Bokmakierie. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
The next day his family called an ambulance and he was taken to Groote Schuur Hospital.
“They took a scan of my head because of this big dent and they treated me for the holes where the taser went in,” Bevan adds.
Lieutenant-Colonel Andrè Traut says police brutality is condemned in the strongest terms, and they will not hesitate to take action against any member in this regard.
He says they can only investigate once Bevan has laid a complaint with Athlone Police Station or Ipid (Independent Police Investigative Directorate).
Bevan says once his medical paperwork is completed, he is taking the matter to Ipid.
In June last year, a 60-year-old nurse from Kewtown lodged a complaint with Ipid after the same officer allegedly slapped, choked and dragged her out of her home.
Veronica Franciscus, 60, and her son Kyle, 31, were wrongfully arrested and the cop even tried to kill her dog, but missed and shot and injured another police officer instead.