6 Suspended in Police Violence Inquiry

Six white officers were suspended amid an inquiry on a videotape showing them punching and kicking suspected thieves, one of whom later died. In a seeming throwback to South Africa’s apartheid-era police violence, the officers are seen beating two suspects--who appeared to be black or mixed-race--and then setting a German shepherd on them. Officers can be heard laughing on the tape. The violence was captured by a camerawoman for the British Broadcasting Corp., which broadcast the tape. After apartheid ended in 1994, crime rates soared. President Nelson Mandela’s government inherited a police force more adept at social control and victimizing anti-apartheid activists than it was at solving crimes.