SAPS fires top cop Vearey
Jeremy Vearey was fired. File photo: African News Agency (ANA)
SAPS has confirmed that Major-General Jeremy Vearey, the Western Cape head of detectives, has been fired after being found guilty of misconduct for disrespectful and degrading social media posts.
Vearey rekked his bek on Facebook, taking potshots at National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole.
He was charged with bringing the police service into disrepute with eight Facebook posts between December 2020 and February 2021 containing links to media reports.
Most of those were apparently in support of former crime intelligence boss, Peter Jacobs, who faced disciplinary charges.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo confirmed Vearey had been fired on Friday.
Referring to the Facebook posts, he said: “Some of the messages were directed at the National Commissioner and contained words that were considered derogatory, offensive, insulting and disrespectful to the National Commissioner thus bringing the National Commissioner and the South African Police Service into disrepute.”
A post from January included a picture of the national commissioner and a caption which read: “an acute case of foot-in-mouth” disease, according to Ntshinga’s 14-page finding.
A post in February cited an online article about Jacobs going to court to challenge the charges against him and was captioned “Moer hulle! F*** them!”
But SA Communist Party Provincial Secretary Benson Ngqentsu said the decision to fire Vearey had all the hallmarks of an “orchestrated witch-hunt” that had destabilised the police leadership in the province with dire consequences for crime fighting capacity, reports IOL.
“In labour relations terms, the matter with respect to General Vearey’s dismissal can be viewed as akin to premeditated dismissal using the dispute procedures to tick the procedural compliance tick box,” he said.
Community safety standing committee chairperson Reagan Allen called on SAPS to address apparent factional battles to prevent internal disciplinary development from stifling crime fighting initiatives in the province.