- Western Cape police are probing a video clip of two officers assaulting two people in Worcester.
- One man is sjambokked and another is slapped, apparently for not wearing a mask.
- According to police, the use of a sjambok by police officials is not only forbidden, but unlawful.
A video clip is under investigation after it showed two police officers sjambokking and slapping two men they searched in Worcester in an attack that appeared unprovoked.
Western Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa, said it was established that the footage, which has been circulating on social media, was recorded near an industrial area on Monday.
The Worcester Cluster Commander is investigating it.
The 30-second clip shows the officers, one with a sjambok in his back pocket, searching two men on the side of a road.
One officer asks the person he is searching what he is doing there. When the person responds that he was working, he is questioned about the absence of his mask. As he pulls something up to cover his face, the officer tells him that that is not a mask and slaps him.
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The man runs away as the other officer takes the sjambok from his partner and starts using it to hit the second person.
Potelwa said preliminary findings revealed that the two officers were SAPS employees based in Worcester and that they were driving a Ceres police station vehicle, which is currently being used by the unit they are attached to.
"The two individuals - one searched, slapped and another sjambokked - are yet to be identified and interviewed as part of the investigation. Further investigation into the matter is expected to also shed light on what had happened prior to the recording commencing."
Potelwa said beating and manhandling people and suspects was "against departmental directives and prescripts that govern the handling of persons by police officials".
"In addition, the use of a sjambok by police officials is not only forbidden but unlawful. A plea is hereby made for space to be given for the sanctioned investigation to unfold and be finalised soon.
"Speculation about what actually happened, including the disclosure of names of the police officials involved would, at this stage of the investigation, be detrimental to the probe that is under way."
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