JHB Wildcat Riot at 12.10 Saturday 18 August 2012
Took my kids to the Good Neighbours market in Braamfontein this morning. Then decided to drive through the JHB CBD to show them the city. We were going to drive across to visit Arts on Main.
At a downtown intersection the light hits red and I stop. Within seconds a screaming JMPD cop cars screeches to a halt in front of us. Cops leap out and scream to shop owners to down their shop front shutters.
I and cars aside me and behind are hemmed in. I am on the front line so to speak.
Then fear grips and my adrenalin kicks in.
The sounds of destruction. Hitting, clanging, metal on metal and then the sight.
Two feet, not meters away they come. Impi like. Armed. Shouting. Wide eyed with weapons : Knobkerries, sticks and rods being wielded in all directions by a men running at ¾ pace, spanning the entire road.
I tell my kids to sit still, don’t move, don’t look anyone in the face.
We are the only pale faced on the front line in a gleaming white A5 . What’s the chance of not blending in the crowd?
My heart now is thumping. What if scenarios flash through my mind. I mean we are sitting ducks.
In the front line, one knobkerrie smack and my windscreen is gone and then what about my kids, what about us?
My son in the back seat covers his face with his tracksuit. My daughter is panic stricken. Told them to unbuckle. I am in zone mode and my chest is tightening every second.
I’ve been there before with a .45 shot through my back and my lung and out the front. Although 16 years ago, it was de ja vu.
There must have been around 500 plus of them . At the end of the run, two cop cars, sirens blazing follow the mass. You can see the panic faced cops with no sense of control.
Then as the last trailing mob runs up and past my view a cop runs past , hand on holster.
When I could I floored my car and could not wait to get the f**k out of there.
A First World African City?
How about a city besieged by uncontrollable marauding masses.
