Crosby Families Brutalised: SAPS SANDF Raid Echoes Apartheid
Featured image: Community members gather outside a Crosby home after the violent raid. Photo: news24
When Stephanie Barnes asks,
“The people who are meant to protect us harm us. So who do we go to for protection then?”she is speaking for countless Black and Coloured communities across South Africa who continue to live under the shadow of state violence. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
A Braai Turned Battlefield
On Saturday night, relatives and friends had gathered at the Barnes family home in Crosby, Johannesburg, for a braai. The men sat near the fire in the yard, while the women were inside. It was supposed to be an ordinary evening in a community that asks for nothing more than the right to exist in peace.
Within minutes, that peace was shattered. Members of the police Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) stormed the property. CCTV footage from the scene tells a story this country knows too well: armed men in uniform descending on Black bodies without warning, without explanation, without humanity.
The footage shows family friend Moegamat Hassim, who was coming out of the house, freezing on the stairs when he saw an armed, uniformed man. He was struck, forced down, kicked and trampled before being ordered to put his face on the ground.
“I just saw the gun, I saw the uniform,”Hassim said. That sentence carries the weight of generations. The gun and the uniform have always meant the same thing in this country: danger, when you are Black.
Wrong House, Same Brutality
But before the AGU and SANDF reached the Barnes household, they had already terrorised another family a block away. In a staggering display of incompetence, the law enforcement group forced their way into the home of Loveshnee Naidoo and her family, who had already settled down for bed.
“Our family is so traumatised after this. There were about 20 or 25 army guys with big rifles. They barged in, they searched all the rooms. My son was having a panic attack, my mother was in the kitchen. They went to get my brother from his room, he’s got rheumatoid arthritis, and they grabbed him by his gown and dragged him to the kitchen,”Naidoo said.
When officers and soldiers saw her brother’s medication, delivered the week before, they accused the family of drug possession. This is the lived reality of communities of colour in South Africa. Your own medicine in your own home becomes evidence of criminality.
When Naidoo pointed out that a pillar by the outside gate had been damaged, a law enforcement officer responded with
“Voetsek!”
It was only after this ordeal that one AGU officer quietly told Naidoo’s mother they were at the wrong address.
“So they weren’t supposed to come here. You’ve traumatised me and my family, you’ve broken my wall, you’ve broken my gate, you’ve broken the kitchen window, you’ve broken the kitchen door, bust through the tenant’s door as well, and now you’ve got the audacity to say ‘No, voetsek, we’re not fixing nothing.’ You’ve left us traumatised,”Naidoo said.
Assault and Alleged Theft
At the Barnes property, the officials claimed they were acting on a “tip-off”. Another family friend, who did not want to be identified, was allegedly singled out, repeatedly slapped, kicked and stomped on, and hit with a rifle and the rifle’s magazine. Almost a week later, he was still limping from his injuries.
The family also alleges theft during the raid. Barnes said an officer with braids repeatedly entered a cottage on the property and later left with a Calvin Klein sling bag containing cash and jewellery. CCTV footage appears to show the officer with the bag near vehicles before the group departed.
Those sworn to uphold the law are accused of breaking it. Those charged with protecting communities are accused of robbing them. This is not policing. This is occupation.
A Pattern of State Violence
Raheed Hoosem, chairperson of the Brixton Community Police Forum, lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and SAPS district command. He is demanding an urgent investigation into the allegations that military personnel and AGU members harassed, robbed and assaulted at least two families in Crosby.
Hoosem said the allegations, if confirmed, point to abuse of authority, unlawful conduct, intimidation and a serious breakdown of trust between the community and law enforcement.
But let us speak plainly. Trust between Black communities and the state’s armed forces was never truly established after 1994. It was promised, it was imagined, but it was never delivered. The uniforms changed. The tactics did not.
Police spokesperson Captain Tintswalo Sibeko confirmed that cases of assault and malicious damage to property have been opened against the officers, and the matter has been referred to IPID.
IPID spokesperson Phaladi Shuping confirmed that investigators are meeting with the complainants and looking into the matter but could not comment further.
Who Protects Us From the Protectors?
IPID investigations are necessary, but they are not sufficient. This country has a long history of state violence investigations that lead nowhere, that gather dust, that allow the same officers to return to the same communities with the same impunity.
What happened in Crosby is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a system that still treats Black and Coloured neighbourhoods as enemy territory. It is a reminder that the architecture of Apartheid policing, the raids, the assaults, the dismissive “voetsek”, remains intact in the institutions meant to serve our people.
The community demands accountability. The community deserves justice. And until the state can prove that its forces exist to protect rather than terrorise, the question Stephanie Barnes asked will continue to echo through every street, every home, every family that dares to gather around a fire and simply exist.