Policing experts and unions are sounding the alarm over the apparent failure of South African Police Service (SAPS) management to properly implement the Marikana commission of inquiry's recommendations to train officers in dealing with public violence.
CCTV footage shows public order police indiscriminately firing at close range into crowds of protesting Wits University students in Johannesburg this week. A bystander, Mthokozisi Ntumba, was killed in the gunfire, and several students were wounded.
Police minister Bheki Cele has also been sharply criticised for sitting on a report by international and national experts which provides strategic guidance on how to deal with various policing challenges.
Both the SAPS and Cele's office have dismissed the accusations.
Marikana commission chair judge Ian Farlam called for the establishment of the panel of experts, which gave its report to Cele in 2018. The panel's deputy chair, Eldred de Klerk, said Cele had sat on their report and its recommendations for two years.
"The report was to give the police ministry strategic direction to transform and professionalise the SAPS," said De Klerk. "Even though SAPS were part of the panel, there seems to be very little institutional movement or commitment to learn from Marikana or other fatal protest shootings with a lack of policy and strategic direction."
De Klerk said the police portfolio committee needed to be hauled over the coals for not demanding the report's release. He added that as long as transformation and implementation of strategies did not happen there would be future Ntumba killings.
Sean Tait, African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum director, said there were cracks in the SAPS public order policing system.
"There is hardly any coherence. Policies and instructions are not filtering down to officers on the ground. What happened in Braamfontein demonstrates this. None of the critical lessons from the 2016 Fees Must Fall protests on how to deal with demonstrations have been passed on to members."
There is hardly any coherence. Policies and instructions are not filtering down to officers on the ground. What happened in Braamfontein demonstrates this
— African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum director Sean Tait
Tait said rubber bullets could be lethal. "Firing rubber bullets must be based on the principles of necessity, proportionality and on precaution. These principles were violated this week.
"Within Gauteng, and in particular Johannesburg, public order policing members have not got the message, unlike those in the Free State, who, during the 2020 Senekal protests, demonstrated restraint in a highly volatile situation. In Gauteng, this unit's members, like those in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Limpopo, have a cavalier recklessness in firing rubber bullets."
Tait said urgent training of police in the appropriate use of firearms in protests was needed. "Indiscriminate firing is never allowed. If you are looking at dispersal, rubber bullets can only be fired if there is an imminent threat against life or property."
He said when firing rubber bullets, policies dictated the "skip round" principal must be followed where rounds are fired into the ground first and not directly at a person.
"You cannot also fire a rubber bullet from close range. Given that rubber bullets can kill, there must be substantial distance between protesters and police."
Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union spokesperson Richard Mamabola said while police management had committed to implementing the Marikana commission recommendations, getting them "implemented so people are protected and our members are not left vulnerable to breaching the law is a major challenge".
He said that despite the police saying training, especially that of public order units, would be prioritised, it had not been, "with refresher courses seldom occurring".
Cele's spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said the panel of experts report would be released at the end of March. "It is not public because there were technicalities from the team dealing with the report that had to be addressed," he said.
Police spokesperson Col Brenda Muridili said that following the Marikana commission's recommendations, the SAPS crowd management learning programme was revised in 2016. "A crowd conflict management course is in the early stages of being rolled out," she said. "All public order policing training material has been revised. Platoon commanders are trained in commanding and managing their personnel and crowd management situations."
Asked how often refresher training was done, Muridili said on an "ad hoc" basis.
She said should any member exceed the boundaries of the law, in any situation, they would be required to account for their actions both criminally and departmentally.
Former SAPS ballistics expert Wollie Wolmeraans said investigations involving rubber bullets were extremely difficult.
"Shotgun barrels, unless defective, do not leave markings, especially not on rubber bullets. To prove which gun and policeman fired the fatal round in the Ntumba case will be difficult, especially if the cartridge cannot be found."
He said the investigation would come down to CCTV and cellphone footage, witness statements and an expert reconstruction of the crime scene. "There must be a very careful crime scene reconstruction. For that to happen there is an urgency to secure every second of available CCTV footage and for this to be analysed in detail."
He said for someone to die from a rubber bullet, the shooter had to be very close.
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