In recent months, the country has been rocked by a series of tragic suicides and family murders, committed by members of the South African Police Service.  This week Special Assignment looks at some of the factors that could drive an ordinary cop to snap.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of violence and crime in the world.  In the fight to keep order, the police are right in the line of fire. It is life-threatening and dangerous work and one police or traffic official is murdered every 37 hours.  The police also witness the horror of death and injury on a regular basis.    This can result in profound psychological damage, called post-traumatic stress disorder. Experts say that the police are exposed to trauma so regularly that the condition can become virtually untreatable.

Michael Mogwane is one such policeman.  He gave his everything to the police – but his work left him permanently psychologically disabled.  He now lives a life of fear, haunted by flashbacks of scenes of death and mutilation he witnessed during his years with the police.  He can’t sleep, and became violent and unpredictable – assaulting his family and members of society, people he was expected to protect.

But what is of most concern is that the SAPS seem reluctant to retire these people on grounds of ill-health. Instead they are given stress leave but are then expected to return to work, where they have full access to loaded firearms.   

The consequences can be devastating, as the young Ricco family well know.  In early May, their mother, a policewoman at Sinoville in Pretoria, walked to the back of the police station and shot herself.   Is this another death that could have been prevented?  Are the SAPS doing enough to make sure that their members are not a danger to themselves and the public? 

TIGERS DON’T CRY is directed by Sasha Wales-Smith with camerawork by Jan de Klerk.

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