A message written in lipstick on the side window of a car illegally parked in the complex where she lived, resulted in a petite white mother from Germiston spending hours handcuffed in a police station \u2013 an experience which still haunts her every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will have to receive professional counselling to try to come to terms with my horrific experience,\u201d a tearful Susan Serwick, 41, told the Pretoria News.<\/p>\n
She was arrested a day after writing the message on the car window.<\/p>\n
The charge was malicious damage to property and resisting arrest.<\/p>\n
Nothing ever came of the charges, and after spending a few fearful hours in the police station, she was told she was free to go.<\/p>\n
Serwick is now claiming a total of R96 000 in damages from the Minister of Police \u2013 R66 000 for unlawful arrest and R30 000 in general damages.<\/p>\n
Her nightmare was sparked by a car which was illegally parked on a yellow line in front of her unit in the complex where she lived.<\/p>\n
It was at about 6pm on Sunday, March 16, this year and Serwick wrote on the side window \u201cDon\u2019t park here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI only had lipstick with me and I did not know who the car belonged to. I only knew it was a visitor to one of the tenants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next evening black policemen came knocking on my door. They said I had to go with them and an officer roughly grabbed me by the arm and cuffed me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next moment he read me my rights. He said he knew how to deal with my type.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serwick said she at first thought she was being kidnapped, as the police were using an unmarked police vehicle.<\/p>\n
She decided to walk out of her unit with the men, as she wanted to call someone in the complex to witness what was happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey insisted that I go with them to the police station in their vehicle. I begged them to allow me to first fetch my teenage son from a gym, but they refused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serwick said she was manhandled by one of the officers, who told her she was resisting arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt vulnerable as I was alone at home. I am a tiny woman and I was left bruised on my arms from the cuffs and the force with which I was handled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serwick was detained for about three hours at the Mondeor police station before a family member was able to summons the help of a lawyer.<\/p>\n
She was told she was free to go home, but she was warned to appear in court later.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor, however, refused to place the case on the roll.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have lost all trust in the police. It was a horrific experience. I was taken from home without being allowed to first inform my family. My son was writing exams at the time and he was extremely traumatised by the events.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoney will not heal my emotional scars. Nothing will fix what they (the police) damaged. I thought this would never happen to me. It still feels like a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sources say the trespassing car owner is black.<\/p>\n
Source: IOL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A message written in lipstick on the side window of a car illegally parked in the complex where she lived, resulted in a petite white mother from Germiston spending hours handcuffed in a police station \u2013 an experience which still haunts her every day. \u201cI will have to receive professional counselling to try to come … Continue reading “Intimidated, manhandled, locked up over lipstick message”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12115,12116,205,210],"class_list":["post-19792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-intimidation","tag-lipstick","tag-police","tag-saps"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19793,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19792\/revisions\/19793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}