You would know by now that soldiers and policemen don’t seem to get
along … not in any country that I have visited. For me, boredom is a
terrible thing, and sometimes one has to compromise to find some
excitement. Therefore, when I heard that Sandton Command assisted in
drug raids, I thought I would check it out, gave all the right people
for references, and I was in. The next mission was coming up in a couple
of weeks. I got the details along with the customary offer to join the
lads at the bar once a week. Knowing myself quite well, I stayed away
until the night of the ops.
We met at the Commando HQ early in the evening, were issued with kit
which, for the first time in my life, contained a bullet-proof vest as
well. Slight argument about that, as I felt that ancient thing would
hamper my freedom of movement. This was not the thin, reasonably
lightweight jacket you see on the movies; it was a bulky, extremely
heavy affair, consisting of two thick Bakelite plates sown in, back and
front. That, together with a Battle Jacket holding four 30-round
magazines, came to half my body weight. The steel helmet has never been
and will never be an option for me. The other guys convinced me the
jacket was a good plan as it stopped a blade slipping in, in the crowded
clubs and brothels we would be raiding. The helmet? No stories of
bricks and bottles thrown from high buildings could convince me to put
that piece of shit on. As for it stopping a bullet,
kak! I have taken one to a civilian shooting range and fired a handgun through the thing; okay, it was a .357, but still.
We were then briefed on what our duties would be. This was
interesting. Apparently, when the cops raided a building, the Nigerians
in the building opposite would take pot shots at them. As we had no
radio contact with either the police or each other, it was understood
that when shots were fired we were to locate the target and fire back. I
have often heard SADF soldiers complain about the accuracy of the R4
rifle, and how the R1 is more accurate, whadda whadda, whadda. A case of
a bad worker blaming his tools? Funnily enough, the R4 rifle was the
weapon of choice for some of the snipers in Bosnia. The weight, length
and recoil of the R1 are all a pain in the arse. That, of course, is
only my opinion, and when one goes into a dangerous situation, one
should be comfortable and confident with one’s equipment.
The other duty I had would be to ‘look after’ the female policewomen.
I thought this was not only a sexist approach, but also that some of
those policewomen sure didn’t look like they needed
me to look after them. Shit, I think in a stand up brawl, they would have kicked my butt.
We then went to meet up with the police team at a station well
outside our targeted area. There were 300-odd of them, and a lot of
trucks, cars and bikes. The most interesting amongst them was a chap
that arrived on a Harley. He had a van Dyke beard and long hair, and was
dressed like an American biker advert. Under his leather vest was a
huge stainless steel .44 magnum. I later learned that his police issue
pistol was tucked in the back of his pants. This character was
apparently the main undercover drug inspector. There were uniformed cops
and plain-clothes cops that still looked like cops, but he looked like a
pimp or major dealer, and had the attitude to go with it. After hanging
around for a few hours, we finally boarded our respective vehicles and
set off for the Brow. This was done with huge fanfare, patrol cars
clearing the way, lights flashing. They blocked all intersecting roads
so our passage was as swift as possible, the idea being to take the
building by surprise and have it cordoned off as quickly as possible,
nobody in or out.
The targeted building was a mixed-up affair with bars, clubs and
whorehouses on the top and bottom couple of floors, with resident flats
in between. As the main force charged the building, we army chaps
scanned the opposite building for signs of trouble. If a curtain
twitched, it was immediately covered by a couple of R4s. Much to my
disappointment, nothing happened. I would have loved to shoot myself a
drug dealer … just for fun, you understand.
Once the cops were in, our duty changed, and we accompanied the
female officers into the clubs. There was total chaos: noise, shouting
and some hitting. The cops seemed to know their business and drugs of
all types were being flushed out. One of the army Bedfords became a
prisoner vehicle, while another was used to pack confiscated drugs.
Pretty soon both were full, and we had just started. From the club we
moved to the whorehouse. Here was another shock. Most of the prostitutes
were under 18 years old, blonde and Afrikaans. Since the mission was to
find drugs, the cops ignored them and raided the office. More prisoners
and many drugs; I then learned about “Black Dollars.”
Apparently, there was this scam where a person bought plain black
paper and it was supposed to somehow turn into dollars. Doesn’t sound
very clever to me, but the fact is, boxes of black paper cut to the size
of banknotes were being taken out along with the containers of drugs.
While this was going on inside the building some cops were outside
watching both the prisoners and the windows. I had come out to help with
window-watching, and, to my amazement, saw hundreds of little black
pieces of paper floating down. Then some packets of white powder joined
in. One cop did some quick floor- and window-counting, and got on the
radio, telling his colleges where it was coming from. They were by now
raiding the residential part of the building.
Standing around watching windows was becoming boring and I decided
that at the next building I would rather join the “kicking down doors
brigade.” Once the building was well and truly raided, and the prisoners
and drugs dropped off at Hillbrow police station, we repeated the
procedure on the other side of town. Again, highly disappointed that
no-one shot at us, I joined up with the Harley man and a policewoman to
kick in some doors. This was fun. The guys downstairs would estimate the
window and floor and give us the info. We got to kick in the doors.
Sometimes they got it wrong and all we would find was some terrified
old-age pensioner that was stuck living in this hell-hole, having bought
the flat when things were better in this country. Their retirement
money was all spent, and their flats had no resale value now that the
Nigerians had taken over the buildings. Hillbrow was called the southern
capital of Nigeria and the Congo. More often than not, though, we would
find some character throwing evidence out the window. He would be
warned to cease immediately, lie on the floor, etc. etc.
One memorable scene was when a chap that was ditching packets of
cocaine refused to listen. Mr Harley told him to stop it, twice, and
when the chap did not listen, Mr Harley casually reached into the back
of his pants, pulled out his pistol, and shot the perpetrator through
the knee. Pandemonium! Cops bursting in from everywhere, radios blaring:
‘Shots fired, shots fired!’ in various languages, and loads of yelling,
some of it from the guy that had just been shot. Some of the cops were
yelling at Mr Harley, but he had a real attitude, although I think maybe
he violated some civil code or something, considering the drug dealer
had no weapons visible. Personally, I think he should have shot the guy
through the head; save a fortune of taxpayers’ money on hospital fees
and the plane ticket to get him back to his own country, till the next
time he gets caught and the whole thing starts again. Apparently, that
would be considered a gross infraction of human rights, or some shit.
Don’t you love “democracy”?
We did two more buildings, the same
modus oparandi, and by
the time the sun was coming up, I was beginning to think, ‘I’m getting
too old for this shit.’ The flak jacket felt like it weighed a ton; it
was biting into my breastbone which has a small bump on it from an old
injury, and I needed a drink. As we were wrapping things up some cops
thought it would be hilarious to let off a few “big bang” crackers to
wake everyone up. They had an arsenal of note pointing at them within
milliseconds; some people were not amused. After that I went home and
had a few shots of vodka and slept on and off for the rest of the day.
Since I was not part of Sandton Command, it was a hassle to get paid and I only went on those jols when I got really bored.
Extract from The Chronicles of the Mexican Horse Thief II. Full version available on my
Mexican Page
