There is no polite way to say this but the South African Police Service, in my opinion, is in shambles. For a force that guzzles billions of rands in taxpayers’ money and brags about high-level operations at press briefings, the SAPS has become an embarrassment. Worse, it has become a threat to the very citizens it is meant to protect.
It has become a bloated, broken and poorly coordinated mess that keeps dropping the ball – and then going on to act as if people are wrong for asking why.
The case of the three Free State constables who vanished and later turned up dead in a river is not just another tragic story.
It is a flashing red signal. It is a gut punch that leaves the country winded. It is a damning indictment of a police force that has long since lost control of the basics: protect, investigate and act.
Constables Cebekhulu Linda, Keamogetswe Buys and Boipelo Senoge – young, fresh out of training, full of promise – were sent from Bloemfontein to Limpopo as part of Operation Vala Umgodi, a task force targeting illegal mining.
Let us not mince words: that operation is a war zone. Any fool on the street knows that zama zamas (illegal miners) are armed, organised and deadly.
These are not small-time hustlers – they are foot soldiers in syndicates with no mercy.
So, why were three inexperienced, unprepared, young officers sent on such a high-risk assignment? Why weren’t they provided with a proper police vehicle? Why was their tracking device switched off? Why, with all the SAPS’s resources – helicopters, drones, forensics, intelligence – did no one in the SAPS seem to care when they vanished without a trace?
They were last seen alive at the Engen garage just after Grasmere toll plaza, heading north on the N1 north highway. Then? Silence. For six days.
Six days during which the families of the missing officers clung to hope, prayed for a miracle, pleaded for answers, and got nothing but cold stares and empty platitudes. Until finally, the truth surfaced. Literally.
Their bodies were pulled from the Hennops River in Centurion – 66km from where they were last seen. One on Monday. Two more the next day.
And just to twist the knife in, two more bodies were discovered in the river. One of them was that of a police officer from nearby Lyttleton police station.
Five corpses. One river. No damn answers!
This is not a mystery novel. This is an outrageous failure of leadership, coordination, urgency, and, frankly, humanity.
Because if SAPS can’t show urgency when their colleagues go missing, what does that say about the rest of us? About our mothers, our brothers and our children?
We’re just statistics, meat for the morgue. That’s the message.
And then, as if to rub salt into the wound, the minister of police steps up to a microphone and tells us not to “speculate”.
Speculate? Is that what we call pain these days? Is that how you dismiss a nation begging for answers?
No, Mr Minister. We’re not speculating. We’re demanding answers. We’re grieving. We’re furious. And we have every right to be!
Instead of real answers, the SAPS offered a R350 000 bounty for information – a move that reeks more of PR than real intent. Where was that urgency before these officers became hashtags and headlines?
And let’s not pretend this is a once-off incident. This is the same SAPS that’s fumbled the Senzo Meyiwa murder investigation for well over a decade, turning it into a slow-moving farce unfolding in the Pretoria High Court as we speak.
The same SAPS that botched the investigation into Nigerian-born televangelist Timothy Omotoso, where critical witnesses were bumped off, evidence was mishandled, and victims left re-traumatised.
Everywhere you look, there are cracks. Cases go cold. Dockets go missing. Justice is delayed until the pain of victims and their families fades into memory. Now, to be fair, not every cop is useless. There are brave, committed officers out there. Men and women who risk their lives daily, often with no support and little recognition. But they are being failed by their leadership and by a system that doesn’t function.
