Last night, about 9:30pm, as we were debriefing from our time delivering soup and bread in three different neighborhoods in downtown Johannesburg, the alley next to our garage looked like a scene from COPS. This was a little different though. It was different because there was not someone beating down a door, and there wasn’t anyone causing any disturbances. There were just a line of homeless men getting ready to go to sleep for the night alongside a fire they had built to stay warm.
Four police vehicles swooped into the alley to harass the men as they were laying down for sleep. Upon arrival, they got the men up and asked “What are you doing?” As the men responded, it got more violent and soon the police were telling the men to put their blankets into the back of the police bakkie. This harassment went on for about 35 minutes. No one was arrested, but the police confiscated the blankets and any ability to build a fire.
After the police left, we gave them soup and bread we had available from our Wednesday night outreach program. After a while longer, when we knew that the police would not be coming back, we handed out blankets to the men so they had something to keep warm with. These police raids are common downtown and happen without any reason. I have to ask myself, without and knowledge of the answer, is where does a society even begin to resolve this problem.
I was able to take this video last night. It isn’t much but it displays a little of what happened.