A woman who was yesterday shown on social media being assaulted by a police officer at Shell Kyanja, says she was beaten by the officer because she asked him to pay for condoms and beer he had taken from the shop.
The 25-year-old Pellan Atuhumurize said that at around 5 am on Wednesday, a vehicle pulled up at Shell Kyanja, and a woman suspected to be a sex worke, stepped out of the car and went to the counter, asking her to pack her condoms. After, she reportedly asked the attendant to follow her to the vehicle for payment.
When she reached the vehicle, a man who was in the driver’s seat allegedly asked her to go back and bring two canned Tusker Light beers, which she did, and upon handing them over, the driver tried to drive away without paying the bill, but she grabbed him by the collar, which angered him.
“He stopped the vehicle, jumped out, and followed me inside the shop, where I kept apologising to him, but he refused to listen. Even the woman he was with told him to forgive me, but he refused. He then told me he could slap me in front of the camera, and even if I took him to court, he would win the case,” Ms Atuhumurize narrated.
She added that as she was still listening to him, he slapped her hard, immediately following it up with another ,and asked her whether she would ever drive the type of car he was driving. In the process, the woman he was with also got scared and removed her belongings from the vehicle.
Ms Atuhumurize said the woman said she could not proceed with the man wherever he was going because she did not know where he was taking her, and the fact that he could beat a woman when she was seeing, showed her that the same could easily happen to her.
The man drove away, leaving her behind. When this reporter reached the fuel station yesterday, he found four relatives of the policeman and a woman trying to establish contact with the family of the assaulted girl, who was within the premises, but they couldn’t reveal her identity.
Following the release of the video of the incident, which went viral on social media, police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke issued a statement on X identifying the suspect as one of their own, Assistant Superintendent of Police Clive Nsiima, whom he said had been apprehended and was in police custody.
Security sources told this reporter last evening that the officer was being detained and would be taken to the police court on Friday at 10 am. Yesterday, Ms Joanita Mukasa Menya, the managing director of Vivo Energy, told guests during a stakeholders breakfast meeting that they can now tell which customer walks into any of their fuel stations at any time becauseofh the help of cameras.