I lived in South Africa for 9 years in its old apartheid days. The police were nationalized (SAP, South African Police). ALL of us knew of the abuses by the SAP. They were pretty much free to administer "justice" as they saw fit, and not just to Africans. There was no habaeus corpus if you were taken in for questioning. It was "Anglo-Dutch" Law, meaning in practical language that you were presumed "guilty" if you were taken to the local station. When in 1980 I took my personal firearm to our local station outside of Cape Town for registration I waited at the Sergeant's desk. From somewhere down the hall I could hear someone being punched, screaming out. Sergeant Karstens returned and remarked, "Oh, THAT fellow! He's part of our new 'Government'!" with a kind of smile on his face. Oh yes! We definitely want a "United States Police Force", just like the South Africans had in the "old days". (Not that their present police situation is much better). I carried my weapon whenever I left the house.

Like everywhere, there were "normal" individuals in the SAP who treated citizens fairly, and others who brutalized guys, either taking them out of city limits & beating them senseless or having their dogs rip into them. It was rumored in Cape Town that tarts were sometimes whisked off the street and taken for a "joy ride" in the police van. There were no seats in the locked-up back of these vans, and the hapless gals were tossed like potatoes as the driver would swerve madly and run over traffic humps at high speed. Even a "guest worker" (gastarbeiter) could be taken away for questioning with little recourse or a phone call. No! I assure all and sundry, we DON'T want a National Police Force! Too bad most Americans have no idea of the morons who were collected to form the Red Guards in Mao's China. Same as the SS and SA in Germany...free to abuse at will.

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