Four of the children have been handed over correctly and safely to their homes.
KwaDukuza peace officers videoed manhandling a four-year-old toddler before arresting the father and 10 other people for alleged lockdown infringement on Sunday morning could face charges of assault if they are found to have overstepped the law, reportsThe video has received widespread coverage on national media, amid furious condemnation of the behaviour of the arresting officers.
The officer is seen lifting the screaming toddler into the air and dragging him back towards the gate.“Get your hands off this child. Somebody call the police,” shouts the man, who is wearing only board shorts. The families, with their children, were already walking home and some had entered the complex when about 10 officers arrived.
“The elderly couple did not have money for bail so we all pitched in to assist them with the amount. It is shocking that at their frail age they were handled this way and arrested,” one father told the Courier. “There are several procedures the police must follow before they can make a legal arrest so that the rights of the public remain protected. There are only a very limited number of circumstances in which an officer can make an arrest. According to the Criminal Procedure Act, the officers must have observed a crime, unless it was a Schedule One crime such as sexual assault or murder.
“We don’t condemn the regulations, but the way they handled the situation was unacceptable. They crossed a line by behaving the way they did in front of our children,” he said.KDM spokesperson Sipho Mkhize said the matter had been investigated and it was found that the officers had received a complaint of non-adherence to the Disaster Management Act regulating Covid-19.
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