A group of Hanover Park men has been left kwaad and traumatised after the Anti-Gang Unit and army allegedly bludgeoned their bums with sledge hammers during a drug search last week.
Residents living in Erie Court say they got a skrik on Thursday night when they witnessed cops and soldiers moering the men they accused of being drug merts.
Mom Washeema Maart, 32, says she too was smacked around while trying to shield her three-week-old baby girl during the alleged assault.
“I was inside the house and a group of them were playing cards outside,” she explains.
“My nephew and his friends were here and that is when they (police and soldiers) came in.
“They told us we sell drugs and have guns and started moering everyone.
“My six-year-old son was smacked through the face and my other son, Tashreeq, 14, was with the other two who they hit on the bums with a hammer.”
Resident Marvin Smith, 27, says along with the teen and another 29-year-old man, who asked not to be named, was forced to lie on the ground while being moered.
DIE MOER IN: Washeema Maart ‘smacked while trying to shield her baby meisie’ in Hanover Park. Picture: Monique Duval
“They hit us all over, but mainly on our bums. They used a big hammer and moered us the whole time,” he says.
“My bum has been blue and sore the whole weekend, I can’t even sit and I don’t even smoke drugs. Ek slaap nou op my maag.”
The 29-year-old man says he was repeatedly shocked with what he believes was a taser.
“I told them they can’t hit that woman while she is holding a baby and so they shocked me.
“The AGU and the army had moerse hammers and they just focused on our bums, I don’t know why.
“They even shocked my eiers(testicles) then they arrested me for ungah that I don’t know where they got from.”
HARM: Black and blue marks of the victim.
Maart says she has not yet opened a case against the officers, but plans to take legal action.
She has since sent her traumatised son to stay with his ouma.
She says: “My son’s bum is very bad and I will speak to my lawyer because of the way they went on.
“If they are doing their work it’s one thing, but they can’t just come in here and moer people and, I mean, I had a baby on me, what if she fell or something?”
Police spokesperson, Captain FC van Wyk, says the family is encouraged to lodge a complaint with police management or the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).
“The alleged behaviour by our members will not be tolerated and we will take appropriate action if the allegations can be substantiated,” he says.