POLICE Ministry spokesman Zweli Mnisi has condemned incidents of police brutality.

"We have emphasised over the years that the duty of police, whether tactical response team or whoever, is to protect society and not to become a nuisance to society," he said.

"We do not need and will never tolerate cowboys in this organisation. We want dedicated and disciplined officers who respect the Batho Pele principle."

He reiterated that the unit had helped reduce serious crimes, particularly cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies, which had been escalating.

"The call to disband the unit must be clearly looked at and we can't disband it. As ministry we will condemn it if any member of the police does wrong and compliment them when they do right. The public has shown confidence and applauded the unit when it helped foil and arrest criminals involved in serious crimes across the country.

"The members of the unit were given advance and special training to deal with bank robberies, cash-in-transit heists and other serious crimes." .

Mnisi urged society not to generalise and portray officers' isolated bad behaviour as a reflection of the whole SAPS. But the ministry encouraged society to report any alleged police brutality to the Independent Complaints Directorate's (ICD).