Should you try to take a photograph of a traffic cop committing bribery?

Question:

I was recently asked for a bribe by a traffic cop -may i take a picture of traffic police or not in order to identify them?

Greetings

Justice

Answer:

Dear Justice.

There is absolutely no law that prevents you from taking a photograph of a traffic cop or anyone else for that matter, however I really do need to offer a few words of caution.

If a traffic cop, particularly a corrupt or abusive one sees you taking their photograph, they will definitely force you to erase it, like happened with the eNews Journalists who filmed TMPD cops abusing a security guard last week.  This is unfortunately a commonplace occurrence, however it is also the best case scenario as they often don’t stop at forcing you to erase it and this can result in assault, arrest and abuse from them.

Therefore, the very best advice I can offer is that if you do photograph a cop, do so in as covert and discreet a way as possible and get the heck out of there as quickly as you can thereafter.

Best Regards,

Howard Dembovsky

National Chairman – Justice Project South Africa (NPC)

We also referred this to Corruption Watch:

It’s good people are interacting with the subject and they want to hold officers accountable. I will send him the Know Your Rights card. Also I’ll try find out if he actually got the pic.

Howard thanks for the explanation.

Have a lovely day

Ella

Corruption Watch

Corruption Watch and fighting corruption