Bloemfontein – Police have confirmed that there are some new developments in their investigations surrounding the alleged racist incident where two boys could be seen on video being attacked and assaulted.
On December 25, police were called to an alleged racially motivated incident that took place at a holiday resort in Bloemfontein.
Two young black boys were attacked because they were allegedly “not allowed in a pool reserved for white people” at the Maselspoort Resort & Conference Centre.
The sister of the brothers who had been on the receiving end of the attack took to Twitter, posting a video of the incident and giving an explanation of what took place.
Family came to spend the day @ MASELSPOORT RESORT & CONFERENCE CENTRE in Free State. My brothers were attacked by these grown men because they are apparently not allowed in the pool as it’s reserved for the “white people” here.
The Oranje-Vrystraat we love ??
Merry Christmas pic.twitter.com/ac4UPZ05ey
— TWIN FL?ME (@Tumii_Frost) December 25, 2022
Divulging a report on the details of the incident, police spokesperson, Brigadier Motantsi Makhele said that when SAPS arrived, the groups involved in the incident had left the scene.
“On arrival members found the groups involved already dispersed and were approached by a parent to one of the victims who alleged that his two teenage boys aged 18 and 13 were assaulted by a group of white males over the usage of a swimming pool,” Makhele said in a statement.
“Given this first information of crime which was received by the police at that time, the only charges which could be registered were assault common and Crimean Injuria.”
Makhele put it on record that SAPS “never downgraded any crime but worked and were informed by first statement as obtained from the complainant”.
“That was not the end of our investigation, hence the investigator continued to obtained more statements before the docket can be placed before the senior state prosecutor to give further directives as the one having such muscles to decide if after obtaining these additional statements a charge can be changed.”
The brigadier said that a charge of attempted murder was possible if more facts are revealed.
“It was after obtaining these statements, the docket was presented to the senior state prosecutor who gave a directive that a charge can be changed to attempted murder given additional facts,” Makhele said.
“The approach of the investigator in this regard as it’s the mandate of the police was to investigate in order to arrest and not to arrest and investigate thereafter.
“The docket was received back from the senior state prosecutor with clear directives, the investigator is now working on these directives and we anticipate that the perpetrator or perpetrators will within no time be brought before a court of law to account on this incident.”
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Picture: Twitter/ @Tumii_Frost
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
