EDITORIAL | If you want citizens to work with the police, Cele, clean up the force

As President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday laid a wreath in honour of the women and men in blue who lost their lives in the line of duty, it stood as a stark reminder of the dangers officers face as they strive to protect South Africans.

Thirty-four law-enforcement personnel perished between April 1 2020 and March 31 2021, and there have been several since, including Const Simon Ntsekeletsa and Sgt Mojalefa Molete (North West officers who we write about in Monday’s edition), and sergeants Nkosinathi Ngcobo, Pumlani Dastile and Sharon Mogale, who were laid to rest at the weekend.

It is a devastating indictment on our country, with its ever-present lawlessness, that on the same weekend the fallen officers were remembered, three others were buried.

Our police are constantly under attack, often brutally. It is a situation that must be dealt with.

The best way to do this, according to police minister Bheki Cele on Sunday, is for communities to work more closely with the police officers who are sworn to protect them.

“The deaths of these 34 members should not be in vain,” he said. “Their loss should remind us all, as a nation, the importance of community policing partnerships. It is clear citizens can no longer afford to be bystanders in their communities. Each day we all should work better at being active citizens.”

Ramaphosa, while calling for police officers to work “within the confines of the law” to ensure they or their colleagues do not die at the hands of criminals, also called for greater community involvement.

“I also want to call upon the public to partner with the police in the fight against crime. It is because of structures such as the Community Police Forums that police, the SANDF and other law-enforcement agencies were able to contain the violence and looting that erupted in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July. 

Government and policing structures in particular need to ask why communities are so reluctant to work with police - because there is clearly a distrust and disconnect between them and citizens.

“Criminals live with us and among us in our communities. We must therefore work towards strengthening community-police relations and bring strategic stakeholders on board to bolster the efforts of police to bring down the levels of serious and violent crime. 

“The perpetrators of these attacks on police must be found and brought to book. The fight against crime cannot be won by the police on their own,” he said.

This is well and good, but government and policing structures in particular need to ask why communities are so reluctant to work with police - because there is clearly a distrust and disconnect between them and citizens.

It could be because of the number of dirty officers within the force, all too frequent examples of which have appeared in this publication and our sister title, TimesLIVE. In May this year alone we reported on three incidents involving dodgy officers:

• A Soweto-based police officer who tried to frame a traffic officer for culpable homicide — and who demanded a bribe for the docket to disappear — has been convicted of corruption;
• A Free State officer arrested for extorting money from a fraud suspect in exchange for making the case disappear; and
• The arrest of two high-ranking police officers in Gauteng in connection with human trafficking. 

A Google search for “police officer arrested + South Africa” will reveal some scary results.

Police also need to answer for their heavy-handedness. The killing of Nathaniel Julies, an Eldorado Park teen with Down syndrome, almost exactly a year ago is but one example. 

So while we mourn the officers who sacrificed their lives to keep us safe, and while we as a citizenry should do everything in our power to work alongside our police forces, there needs to be greater effort and determination to ensure public trust is rebuilt. It is impossible to work alongside people you do not trust, for whatever reason.

Cele said on Sunday: “How I wish we, as a country, could reach a point where there is no longer need to have this annual tradition because our officers are no longer dying while serving their communities.”

We agree, minister, and cleaning up the police force would be the best way to start if you want all South Africans to partner up.

Nothing justifies the killing of police officers — not set of circumstances could — but there can be no doubt that the disconnect between cops and civilians could be bridged, to everyone’s benefit, by a more trustworthy force.