Johannesburg – Many moons again, I worked closely with the Johannesburg Metro Police as a reporter for a city daily.
Spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar never failed to invite me when his troops went on raids in and around the city.
With a photographer in tow, we would accompany the police on raids of hijacked buildings.
The raids and evictions never failed to provide colourful, although heartbreaking, stories. It’s interesting to observe people admit to breaking the law and then twisting their tales to justify their misdeeds.
When we hit an illegally occupied building, many claimed they were not aware the building was hijacked.
A lot of them paid rent to the landlord. Finding no mercy from the lawmen, they would crowd me with their tales of woe, believing that my notebook would provide them with succour.
Of course, the police sometimes overstepped their boundaries in their exuberance. In one raid, we found a man with about seven children in an overcrowded flat in Hillbrow.
It later transpired he was from the Democratic Republic of Congo and spoke French, which none of us understood.
He was babysitting his brother’s kids while their mother was in hospital.
The poor guy was arrested while the children wailed in confusion and fear.
With my experience of the raids, I often whispered to the occupants to leave before the arrival of the Red Ants after the police were done checking their papers.
Many did not heed my advice.
They would regret later when the Red Ants start to mercilessly throw their belongings out.
They would once more search for me to recount their tribulations, and claimed they were not aware of an eviction order and had nowhere to go.
I watched keenly this week when the police and soldiers confiscated goods that were stolen during the looting of malls and industrial sites two weeks ago.
Many poured their hearts out to the media that they were poor and needed the stolen food to keep hunger at bay.
Their hurt was exacerbated by the news that the confiscated food would be thrown away. I know that when hunger pangs gnaw in your guts, you do not care where your next meal comes from.
But I fail to understand how hunger can drive a man to loot booze and a TV set.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, those items do not meet the criteria for essential goods. They are merely wants and luxuries.
Yes, ours is an unequal society in which millions barely survive below the breadline.
But that should never justify criminality.
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