Once upon a time, not so long ago, you could bet that your average black cop was evil. Maybe not to the extent of their white fellow travellers, but evil all the same.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, you could bet that your average black cop was evil. Maybe not to the extent of their white fellow travellers, but evil all the same.

They would gleefully make life a misery for their fellow blacks, and heaven help those who encountered them in the presence of their pale colleagues. Then their meanness reached fever peak.

Those who have tasted gruelling interrogation can tell you stories of black cops making it clear - in pidgin Afrikaans - that they would happily wipe you out if you didn't "tell the truth".

When their white colleagues were out of hearing shot, they would transform into decent human beings again.

I personally experienced a situation where a white constable told a black sergeant: "Petrus, se hom in sy eie taal hy gaan kak!"

The compliant sergeant translated, banging his fist into the counter: "Morena o re o tlo ny**la."

Sadly, the advent of such cops, who believe that it is strong to be mean and evil, is still very much with us. They don't have too many white bosses going, but old habits die hard, and many of them are as mean and unfeeling as ever.

This past week our children caused hell in Vanderbijlpark on the Vaal. They drank publicly, made intolerable noise and behaved like little satans, literally on the doorsteps of some households. One thing led to the other, and the police zoomed in.

Good shot, you would have thought, but, among those hell-raisers were innocent children caught up in a situation they had not anticipated.

I know because two of these were my nephews - visitors to the area - who ended up at the wrong park which shared a name with the one they had meant to go to.

While waiting at the gate, frantically calling their other cousins for directions, the cops rocked up, grabbed their picnic baskets and camp chairs, and threw them into the back of the van.

If the kids had done something wrong - and they swear they did not - 10 out of 10 to the cops. In fact, they could have clipped their ears as well. I will not argue that my nephews were innocent, on the off-chance that the cops are right.

What brings up my bile though is that when I called the commanding officer, introduced myself and calmly asked to know what they had done, I got an attitude from 1962: "I am not going to discuss that now!"

She promptly dropped the phone on me.

Hell, madam, one of those children is a minor, and the other not much older. Surely it must be in Chapter One of police literature that parents or guardians must be involved in "criminal" matters that involve their charges.

Those who were on the scene say she gloated like she had just captured Annanias Mathe. She pranced around bragging: "I will show them today."

Good ma'am. Show them. Get the little brats to respect the law and learn how to behave publicly. But learn to listen as well, sweetheart. I have a hunch that if I were a white parent, you would at least have listened to me. And maybe you could show your ek-sal-hulle-wys bravado fighting the criminals in your area.

A sad reflection on the good apples in the basket of the "service".