WATCH: Taxi drivers help colleague escape from police
Video footage of the incident has made headlines across South Africa…
Video footage that has been shared online shows an incident where a group of alleged taxi drivers prevented police from arresting one of their colleagues.
In the video, police can be seen pinning down the man in an attempt to arrest him while gesturing to others to stay away from the altercation.
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A group of men appear and prevent the police from arresting the man by pulling him from their grip.
Watch here:
A follow-up video shared by IOL shows that the taxi drivers were successful, as the man can be seen driving with the handcuffs still attached to his wrists.
"Here are the handcuffs with which I escaped. They are dangling," the man can be heard saying in the video.
According to Netwerk24, JP Smith, a member of the mayoral committee for safety and security in the Cape Town metro, said the incident occurred at around 5pm on Saturday.
Traffic officers tried to arrest a taxi driver on FW De Klerk Boulevard in Cape Town because he was driving a vehicle with a suspected fake licence disc.
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Smith added that passing taxis stopped and the drivers attacked the officers, helping the suspect to break free and flee the scene.
"Such incidents cannot and will not be tolerated," Smith says.
"Our officers, across law enforcement departments, are in the line of fire daily, while doing their work for the benefit of all our residents and to keep them safe. This is also why the Cape Town metro will soon amend legislation regarding public transport."
The Cape Town metro's safety and security unit is investigating the incident and is trying to trace the driver involved so that further steps can be taken.
Spokesperson for Santaco in the Western Cape, Makhosandile Tumana, said they are very concerned about what happened in the video.
Tumana claimed that taxi drivers are regularly mistreated by traffic officers in the Cape Town metro.
"If a taxi driver flees, it is the traffic officer's job to pursue and arrest him, not to hit him first," says Tumana.
"The violence contributes to increasing tension between the taxi industry and traffic officers in the Cape."
Tumana claims that the people who "helped" the taxi driver on Saturday were ordinary people, "but we are not entirely sure".
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IMAGE: YouTube/ Screenshot/ Netwerk24