Man dies in police custody after “struggle” with Table View cops

Given Mabusela died in the custody of Table View police. Photo supplied.

Given Mabusela, 46, died on 6 November, while in the custody of the Table View police. When the police took him to the Du Noon clinic he was put on a ventilator but declared dead on arrival.

According to a leaked internal police report signed by the station commander, Colonel Junaid Alcock, Mabusela (the report misspells his name as Mbusela) had been taken into custody shortly after midnight by a routine patrol, together with another man who was found in possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.

The report says Mabusela “refused to cooperate” and police “used the force necessary to place the person into the back of the patrol vehicle”.

When being processed at the station, police say Mabusela refused to remove his shoelaces and “attacked” the officers. Mabusela “sustained a head injury during the struggle to cooperate”.

Mabusela “later struggled with breathing” and was taken from the holding cells to the Du Noon clinic, the report continues.

Mabusela’s half sister Tumelo Peete said: “I tried to call IPID (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) but they never answered my calls.”

“I am stressed. I am alone, you see I don’t even know where to start to seek guidance,” said Peete. “We borrowed money to bury him. How can they kill someone who did not even plead in court?”

The deceased’s girlfriend, Zanele Nzamo, said senior police officers visited her residence at Eden on the Bay in Big Bay and informed her of Mabusela’s death.

“He [police officer] introduced trauma counsellors and his team and then said we’re here to inform you that Given passed away … just like that,” said Nzamo.

“They left me with trauma counsellors for about five minutes.”

“[Mabusela] was a breadwinner and he provided for me everything. We were always together. He was my friend, my lover, best friend, brother … He was everything to me,” she said.

Nzamo went to see the man who had been arrested with Mabusela on 10 November at Pollsmoor prison. She said he was crying.

“He said Mabusela was brutally murdered,” she said.

Western Cape SAPS spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk said the case was now the subject of an Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) investigation” and referred us to IPID.

IPID spokesperson Phaladi Shuping said details of the active investigation could not be divulged, but “safe to say, we are at the final stages of concluding our investigation”.

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