Police Intimidation Poem by Gert Strydom

Today while in Springs
walking on the sidewalk
on my way to home
there was a police roadblock

put up right over the main road
just at Werda School
where you leave the shopping area
where eight armed policemen were standing

and when I got a call
from a wrong number
the one in the middle of the road
rushes to me; saying that I have taken a photograph of him

and the whole lot of them close around me,
I am even grabbed
with a hand into the back of my pants
that holds onto my belt,

I am searched
with hands being put
into my pockets
and my two cellular phones are taken

whereupon I say to them
that I have broken no law
and I am taking record of police intimidation
and a black police captain

(if military ranks are the same)
grab onto my arms holding them
and say that he is going to lock me up
and he stands so near to my face

that I am able to smell his sour breathe.
Whereupon I say to him
that I have broken no law,
that he has no grounds for arrest

and that touching me
is as good as assault
and then a white policeman
with two stars (a military lieutenant’s rank) walks nearer

and the captain let go of my arms,
some of the group gathered around me stands back
but the one at my back
is still holding on to me

with his hand on my belt
into the back of my pants
while another one
is busy going into the data
of my cellular phones
and the white one threaten

to assault me,
to hit me into a hospital
and I say to him
that surely in his eyes

it is illegal to tape
this conversation that they must let me go
as I have not broken any law.
Then he says if I again

spit him in the face while I talk
he will hit my teeth out of my mouth
and I say that the one holding me
is already assault

and that I will let them lock him up
in his own jail, if he touches me
and he says that he will not
touch me even with gloves

and that man stands so near to me
trying to intimidate, that I can smell him
and it smells as if for a whole week
he did not bath
as he is stinking of rotting sweat.

Then they want to know my name
and address from me
which I refuse
to give to them.

Then the white lieutenant says
that it is illegal
not to give my particulars

and I to him
that they do not have the right to it
as I have broken no law

as I am wondering
if the lot of them
want to come and assault me
in the middle of the night or something?

Then he says: “you that have swallowed
a whole law book, you know
that you have to give
your name and address.”

Then I say again
that I have broken no law
were just passing
and I am tacking record of police intimidation.

Then the white lieutenant says
that I do not even know what my name is
also in what street I am walking
and exactly in what town,
at what place
I am in the world.

The black policemen
stand laughing
as if it’s the joke
of all jokes

and I say that I want my cellular phones back,
that they cannot come
and steal them from me
and he threatens again to hit me.

When they can get no photograph of them
on my cellular phones
they give my cellular phones back
and the white man that they call adjutant threatens

again to assault me
and says away with you
that I must be on my way
and says record this now
and I will hit you like thunder!

Then I say that this type of thing
only happens in a police state
and that they are Gestapo
busy with police intimidation
and that I am going to publish this incident
and they laugh at me.

l’Envoi
Now I wonder as a citizen,
who pays my taxes
when and where I have a job,
what rights does the law representatives claim
to themselves
and how good, are they at their jobs?

The two cars that had being stolen from me
have after three years
not been found back
and this lot is fast

to stand and threaten with assault
and I scoff at them and know my rights,
but three thousand farmers have been killed
and where are their killers?
Surely walking around freely?

Surely one can only expect an incident like this
in the new South Africa
where things are only going
from bad to worse.

[This incident happened on Saturday 11 December 2010 at 09h15.]