The SAPS have had a lot of  negative media attention lately (and rightly so) involving the blue light brigade, bogus cops and official police officers abusing their power and disregarding standing orders, procedures and the Constitutional rights of the public. More and more police officers have been found guilty of victimising civilians accused of minor or even fictitious offences, by pushing them off the road, using excessive force, sometimes with racial undertones.

I had chills running up my spine, when I read the related article on Carte Blanche. Not only do we have to deal with murderers, thugs and rapists running rampant in our country, now we have to worry about brutality in our police force as well.

The question that everybody’s asking is, what do you do, if you find yourself being pulled over by an aggressive police officer who obviously does not have your best interests and safety at heart?

In response to this, Eblockwatch has launched the Police the Police campaign.

You register with Eblockwatch, you then save their number into your phone (on speed dial). In the event of an attack you press the speed dial button on your cellphone, it turns into a recording device, where you give an eyewitness account of what’s happening to you at that moment.

When the cellphone connection is terminated – either by you or somebody else – the information is immediately stored on a remote server.

Now that idea is fantastic, but lets expand on it further, why cant you have a similar facility on the police cars, a camera that has a live feed to a remote server, so as soon as the vehicle is turned on, the camera will activate and immediately begin recording. This type of facility will protect the rights of the police officer as well as the rights of the civilians. Should the camera break or be covered during an incident, then additional police officers are dispatched to the scene immediately.

If you have any good ideas on how to ‘Police the Police’ or if you have experienced police aggression first hand, then let us know.