"Power Corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" a true tale of harrasment in SA

I'd like to begin this post by describing the person who this below occurrence happened to. *Tom is one of the most warm-spirited, generous and gentle people I know. Music is his great love and passion. He is a really great person who is both tolerant and untampering in who other people are and chose to be.

I am deeply upset that things like this happen to people, but even more upset that *Tom had to endure such a soul-oppressing situation.

What you read below is his own account of what happened to him and how he felt.

All your comments, thoughts and ramblings are welcome.

"So yeah, here's the whole story; I was driving behind this guy in a Ford Focus WZW073GP yesterday, coming past the Boskruin Shopping centre and it had just become a double lane. As this guy was driving very slowly, I tried to pass him on the right when he suddenly swerved into the right hand lane without indicating. I then swerved left and went past him. I looked at him and opened and closed my hand to tell him that he should indicate next time and he instantly turned on his blue light and I could hear him screaming at me to pull over. As I had done nothing wrong, I presumed that it was one of those random "stop & search procedures, so I pulled over. He then got out and ran up to my window and threatened to "F$#@ me up", I was very apologetic as he had a gun around his waist as well as a whole lot of other stuff. He was very abusive and calling me all sorts of derogatory words/names. When I told him he couldn't speak to me that way, He then got even more angry and shouted at me to get out my car because he was going to " teach me a lesson and F$#@ me up!" As he had not produced a badge, I did what Carte Blanche said and refused to get out the car and said that we could drive to the nearest police station and he could arrest me and do whatever else there, to which he replied, "You drive anywhere and I'll F$#@ing fill your car with led!" I was totally freaked out by this and just kept apologizing until eventually he let me go. I was going to go to the cops about this but in fear for my life or being hunted down and totally harassed by this guy, I won't... Human Rights??? I think not!... What kind of world do we live in when the police hold all the cards and there's absolutely nothing you can do in your own defence? It’s sickening."

There were lots of reponses to this post; that was fairly encouraging - people voicing their frustrations and anger towards this kind of behviour and form of abuse.

My response to it:

"Wow *Tom I’m so sorry you had to endure this kind of harassment and blatant denial of your rights.

One of the most upsetting things about reading this is understanding how totally powerless you felt. The problem is that policemen/women (and most people of authority) can do pretty much anything to you and it most times goes unnoticed or very well covered up.

The biggest issue here is this very old phrase “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” you can see it everywhere. Look at our political situation – I won’t go into that for now – you know how worked up I get.... See More

But bottom line is people don’t go into jobs because they genuinely love what the job entails. People get jobs because they need to eat and feed a family. Its simply “a job” not a craft that they use to better someone else's life nor for the betterment of something (perhaps a system of doing things).

Once again I’m sorry you had to go through this.

Would you mind if I posted this on my blog? I think situations like yours are experienced by most and then get swept under the carpet because “nothing happened in the end”.

I'm sorry but verbal assault IS something.

Massive Love to you *Tom. x"