En esta imagen tomada de la televisi?n, cortes?a del peri?dico sudafricano Daily Sun, aparece un hombre con las manos esposadas en la parte posterior de una camioneta policial arrastrado por el veh?culo en Johanesburgo el 26 de febrero del 2013. Despu?s lo sueltan y la camioneta se lo lleva arrastrando por el piso. El hombre muri? poco despu?s de sus heridas. El video tomado por un espectador con un tel?fono m?vil tom? toda la escena (AP Foto/The Daily Sun) TV OUT
En esta imagen tomada de la televisi?n, cortes?a del peri?dico sudafricano Daily Sun, aparece un hombre con las manos esposadas en la parte posterior de una camioneta policial arrastrado por el veh?culo en Johanesburgo el 26 de febrero del 2013. Despu?s lo sueltan y la camioneta se lo lleva arrastrando por el piso. El hombre muri? poco despu?s de sus heridas. El video tomado por un espectador con un tel?fono m?vil tom? toda la escena (AP Foto/The Daily Sun) TV OUT
In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man with his hands tethered to the back of a police vehicle being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT
In this still frame from TV and courtesy of South African Daily Sun newspaper, showing a South African man as he refuses to get into a police vehicle and seems to be tethered to the back of the vehicle before being dragged behind as police hold his legs up and the vehicle apparently drives off, east of Johannesburg Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013. The man died of his injuries. In video filmed on a mobile phone, uniformed police are seen trying to subdue the man, then tethering him to the back of a police vehicle which drives off, watched by a large crowd. Moses Dlamini of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said early Thursday Feb. 28 2013 on ENCA TV network that his service has opened a murder probe. (AP Photo/The Daily Sun) TV OUT
FILE - In this photo taken Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012 Police surround the bodies of striking miners after opening fire on a crowd at the Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa. The state of South Africa?s police forces came into sharp focus last week during Pistorius' bail hearing where police stumbled and fumbled in the bail hearing of Pistorius who is charged with the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The judicial system and its ruthless police force was the backbone of the racist Apartheid system. Now, almost two decades after Mandela ended the all-white regime in 1994, this system is creaking under corruption and mismanagement. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - In this photo taken Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010, South African former police commissioner Jackie Selebi, center, leaves the High Court in Johannesburg, after a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison on corruption charges. The judicial system and its ruthless police force was the backbone of the racist Apartheid system. Now, almost two decades after Nelson Mandela ended the all-white regime in 1994, this system is creaking under corruption and mismanagement. The two police chiefs ahead of National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega, were forced out, including Selebi who went shopping with a drug smuggler in exchange for information. The state of South Africa?s police forces came into sharp focus last week during athlete Oscar Pistorius' bail hearing, for the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at the magistrate?s court in the capital Pretoria. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Eight South African police officers were charged with murder on Friday for the death of a taxi driver dragged by a police vehicle, a videotaped incident which became a worldwide symbol of police brutality in this country.
Earlier on Friday, friends and relatives of Mido Macia gathered around a simple table adorned with a few flowers in the poor township of Daveyton, to mourn the death the slender 27-year-old who died shortly after the dragging incident on Tuesday.
South Africa's police chief Gen. Riah Phiyega said she shared "the extreme shock and outrage" over the video evidence of abuse of Macia by police officers and said his rights were "violated in the most extreme form."
Dressed in a formal police uniform, Phiyega said at a press conference that she stands by the integrity of her police force and insisted she will do her utmost to bring to justice those guilty of the death of Macia.
Hours later, Moses Dlamini of the police investigation unit said eight policemen from Daveyton were charged with murder.
The restraining and dragging of the man, a taxi driver who had allegedly parked in the wrong spot, was videotaped by members of a horrified crowd of onlookers who beseeched the police to stop their abuse and questioned their motives in dragging the taxi driver away with their police car, as he was struggling for his life.
He was found dead in prison a few hours later, suffering from head and upper abdomen injuries, including internal bleeding. The injuries could be from the dragging and he could also have been beaten later in police custody.
" I stood with him, I talked with him. He was a very good man," said Jafta Ndlovu, Chairman of the taxi association, said after the service in Daveyton.
The scandal is the latest to undermine confidence in South Africa's police force, which has expanded from 120,000 to nearly 200,000 over a decade.
"When dealing with 200,000 employees, it is never an easy environment," Phiyega said Friday. "There will always be incidents such as this."
Phiyega said the police force would also have its own internal investigation and said the Daveyton station commander was removed "so that the investigations can proceed uninhibited."
Despite the murder charges and the Phiyega's promise of action, criticism of South Africa's police mounted. On the heels of President Jacob Zuma calling the incident "horrific, disturbing and unacceptable," the ruling ANC party said that "where police brutality is evident, stern action should be taken."
For many though, the apparent total disregard of the Daveyton police officials of a throng of bystanders witnessing such abuse, showed how abuse is rampant in the police force.
Mamphela Ramphele, the leader of Agang, a new opposition party, called the dragging incident "an example of the culture of impunity which has taken root in our public service."
She said that "some members of the police ? who are no longer a service but a force, as they were under apartheid ? are behaving with unbelievable callousness."
Beyond police brutality, the police force also must deal with mismanagement and a lack of training and resources.
The magistrate at last week's bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius severely criticized the lead police investigator for shoddy work in the investigation of the murder case against the double-amputee athlete, who is charged with killing his girlfriend.
Last year, police fired into a crowd of striking miners, killing 34 in a convulsion of violence that reminded many of the worst brutality of the apartheid era.
"Any one death is a death too many," said police chief Phiyega.
In Daveyton, there were already worries how Macia's aging parents in Mozambique would be affected by the tragedy.
"He was the one who would buy them food and send it home to them," said relative Badanisi Ingwenya. "Now because of this, there is no one to support them."
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