Most of us would agree that job interviews are nerve-wracking at the best of times, but even your worst experience is likely to be better than that of Esethu Mcinjana.

This past Sunday, Esethu arrived in Sea Point for a job interview at a hotel in the area. Whilst the interview was only due to start at 10:45AM, Esethu arrived well in advance.

After trying the buzzer at the hotel in question, and not getting a response, she grabbed a seat on a bench along the promenade to bide her time.

What’s illegal about that? Nothing, although someone forgot to inform the police. Here’s IOL with details on what happened next:

She said she was taking selfies at about 9:20am when she was approached by a police officer who asked her what she was doing there.

“Her tone was aggressive. I explained to her that I was there for an interview but was early. She didn’t believe me and said there are no interviews on a Sunday.”

“She grabbed my bag and started searching it, throwing my things on the ground. My CV, a few of my toiletries and my house keys were in the bag,” said Mcinjana.

She took a video which clearly shows the police officers who were searching her bag, a Sergeant Smith and Constable Prince.

We often joke that taking selfies should be a crime, but the footage that Esethu captured on Sunday is incredibly distressing:

This really, really pisses me off. Is this that #BlackPrivilege you speak of, Helen?

The female police officer finishes by saying “I found what I need to”. Sorry, what you need to wrongfully arrest someone sitting on a bench?

Yes, they arrested Esethu:

Mcinjana [below] said she was accused of being a robber. “She said I used the remote to rob people’s cars. I tried to explain that the remote wasn’t even working but I was using it as a key holder.”

Smith called a police van on her radio, took Mcinjana’s phone and made her get into the van. She said she was taken to Sea Point police station, handcuffed and shouted at by Smith, photographed and fingerprinted and then put into a cell.

“I tried to show the police officer the email that shows I was there for an interview but she didn’t listen to me. She just put me in a holding cell,” said Mcinjana.

She says she was only given her phone at 4pm to tell her mother where she was.

That image above is taken by Ella Ndongeni and comes from this GroundUp report.

When her mother, Margaret Mcinjana, phoned, she was told that it was too late to see her daughter, who was then kept overnight.

The next morning, Margaret was only allowed to speak to her daughter for a matter of minutes:

“My daughter left home for a job interview but ended up in jail. For what? She has never done anything wrong. She was looking forward to that interview.”

Margaret confirmed to police that the remote switch they had taken from her daughter’s bag no longer worked and was just used as a keyring.

Sea Point SAPS spokesperson, Captain Elizabeth Munro, said Mcinjana had been found to be in possession of “vehicle breaking” implements.

However, Munro said, there were “no prospects of successful prosecution as discussed with the senior prosecutor”.

The SAPS have a thankless task, and their thinly-stretched resources make the job a constant battle against the odds, but how does treating a citizen like this reflect on our law enforcement?

Esethu, who is consulting lawyers and also intends to approach the Human Rights Commission, says she was eventually released at 3PM on Monday, almost 30 hours after her bag was first searched.

She added that she was too embarrassed to contact the people about the job interview she missed.

We don’t know which hotel it was, but if you work for a hotel, and were due to interview somebody at 10:45AM who never showed up, now you know why.

[source:iol]