Image: The South African
Faizel Patel – 12/03/2021
Criminologist Simon Howell says there was a complete lack of discipline in the manner in which police handled the protesting Wits University students.
Howell was speaking to Radio Islam about the protests, which has seen students take to streets for almost a week over the scrapping of historical debt and allowing them to register for the 2021 academic year.
Police opened fire at student protesters with rubber bullets.
In the altercation, an innocent bystander Mthokozisi Ntumba, who just left a nearby clinic, was shot and died on the scene.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has also added his voice to the increasing number of South Africans speaking out about the heavy-handed response shown by police at a Wits student protest.
Ramaphosa said the actions of the students as seen on television did not warrant the type of resistance and push from the police.
Howell says the police clearly overreacted during the students protests.
“This type of thing shouldn’t have happened, I don’t know why it happened either, and it’s almost random. But a lot more training and a lot more discipline needs to be put into the forces and more thinking around how to react to student protests at large because at the moment I think SAPS is responding with violence and just escalating those levels of violence beyond what they need to be.”
Howell says there is a disconnect between some police, the public and society.
“There’s a binary between us and them. The police have come to see some people in society as enemies, but when they respond, they respond with a lot of force. Vice versa society often treats police really badly and seen them as illegitimate and as a result tend to antagonise the police. That’s the sort of mixed bad relationships results in the escalation of violence to the effect that people get killed.”
Police minister Bheki Cele visited Ntumba’s family on Thursday saying that there was no explanation nor excuse for his death.
Listen to the interview with Simon Howell
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