Witnessed two mob justice incidents in one week — Cape Town is normalising something dangerous
This week I watched two separate incidents that I can’t stop thinking about.
The first was on Adderley Street. A man was surrounded and attacked by roughly 30 people. It was only the intervention of security guards that prevented what looked like it could have been a fatality.
The second was in Sea Point. A man came running through traffic being chased by a group. The driver in the car next to me opened his door deliberately as the man ran past, it hit him and he went flying. The crowd caught up and joined in beating him, shouting that he’d thrown rocks.
I’m not writing this to defend whoever these men were or what they may have done.
I’m writing this because both times, I watched ordinary people become something else entirely within seconds. No trial. No certainty. Just collective violence that felt, in the moment, like justice.
South Africa’s frustration with the criminal justice system is legitimate. Courts that feel toothless, a police force many communities don’t trust, repeat offenders back on the street. I understand the anger that builds from that.
But a crowd is never certain. The man running through traffic could have been innocent, mentally ill, or simply in the wrong place. Nobody stopped to ask.
People have been beaten to death in this city for stealing food.
I don’t think most people in those crowds think of themselves as violent. That’s what makes it dangerous, it doesn’t feel like violence when everyone around you is doing it.
Has anyone else been noticing this more frequently? Is this getting worse or am I just more aware of it?
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When people dont have trust in the system they take it into their own hands. There is a decided gatvolness with crime at the moment.
The blatant corruption of our criminal justice system, which sees hardened criminals with rape and murder charges be paroled or released after slap on the wrist sentences, has only compounded this fact.
It is going to become way more commonplace imo