SA: OUR POLICE JOBS MADE US ADDICTS

[Alfa]

OUR POLICE JOBS MADE US ADDICTS

The Western Cape police have launched a high-level investigation into
admissions by two provincial detectives that they are hooked on drugs
because of their duties.

High-ranking officers are investigating claims by the male
detective-inspector and his fiancee, also a detective-inspector.

Both are based at the organised crime unit, and were allegedly used as bait
to "trap" drug dealers and gangsters.

The male detective recently laid an abduction case against his unit head -
a director.

The Western Cape Independent Complaints Directorate confirmed that it is
investigating a case against the director.

The inspector claimed he was removed against his will from a drug
rehabilitation clinic in Claremont in December, after threatening to spill
the beans about his superior.

The director and two colleagues allegedly took him to a safe house in
Hermanus, and then to a city hospital to complete his rehab programme.

But he feared for his life and after his fiancee visited him in the
hospital, he bribed a nurse with R100 to allow him to escape from the
hospital with his fiancee.

The inspector started work at the unit again recently but he and his
fiancee were informed last week by the director of a possible transfer to
the uniformed branch.

He was informed - by letter - that he might be transferred to the Parow
charge office "for the enhancement of service delivery". His fiancee was
informed that she could be on her way to the Kraaifontein charge office.

The pair have complained of repeated victimisation by the director and
senior colleagues.

Western Cape police spokesman Superintendent Riaan Pool said: "In terms of
labour legislation, a legal responsibility rests on the employer to take
the necessary remedial steps and measures which will be in the best
interest and welfare of a member.

"These members themselves came forward with information that suggested they
might have been contaminated or are in the process of contaminating
themselves in a way that had or will definitely have a negative effect on
their welfare."

Pool said that on February 27, notices of possible transfers were served on
the couple. This was one part of "an internal process initiated to support


and rehabilitate the members".

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thanks for sharing.

[Expat98]

This reminds me of the dystopian novel A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick.

Synopsis

The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drop-out drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture and, ironically, from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to Substance D (also referred to as Slow Death, Death or D), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing conflict is Arctor's love for Donna, a drug dealer through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D. Arctor's persistent use of the drug, which causes the two hemispheres of the brain to function independently, or "compete", produces the strange scenario in which Arctor and Agent Fred do not realize they are the same person. Incapable of combining what each persona knows, Fred begins spying on himself, Arctor, more passionately. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Unknowingly, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the secretive organization.

As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, "Bruce" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn; and realizes the blue flowers are the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his "friends" - undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility - on Thanksgiving.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thanks for the video about Tom.