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Parents and community members clashed with EFF supporters outside Brackenfell High School on Monday.
- The incident at Brackenfell High School on Monday is not a police matter, said Police Minister Bheki Cele.
- EFF MP Henry Shembeni asked him about the incident.
- Cele said the police alone couldn’t figure it out.
The incident at Brackenfell High School on Monday, where EFF protesters were allegedly attacked by residents, is not a police matter, Police Minister Bheki Cele said.
Cele and senior police officers briefed the Police Portfolio Committee on Wednesday of a restructuring strategy for the underperforming forensic division when EFF deputy Henry Shembeni posed a question about the Brackenfell incident after the Informative session.
Shembeni asked if the police were still the public’s last line of defense and what they were doing across the country when peaceful protesters are targeted by so-called racists.
READ | Brackenfell violence: man charged with firing air pistol released in warning
Committee chair Tina Joemat-Pettersson allowed the question.
“I would not love to reply to the Honorable Shembeni in a [fashion]”Cele said.” Everyone does anything else, and at the end of the day, the question is, ‘Where are the police?’ “
He added that the police should obviously get involved if a crime is perpetrated.
SEE | Fists fly outside Brackenfell High School as tensions rise between residents and EFF protesters
Cele said the schools were not military bases where police officers should be deployed.
According to him, “other departments do not line up and then matters that are not necessarily police matters end up with the police.”
“We are dealing with it,” he said, referring to the Brackenfell incident.
Cele added that it cannot be solved by the police alone, who must focus on the high level of violent crime in the province.
“These matters are ordered where they are ordered.”
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