Blue Bulls prop Jacobus Stefanus “Bees” Roux has been charged with murder. The 1.86m-tall, 120kg rugby player will stay behind bars this weekend, after he was arrested in the early hours of Friday morning on suspicion of beating a Tshwane metro police officer to death.
The drama began around 2am.
Roux was pulled over by a random metro police patrol on suspicion of drunk driving.
Sergeant Johannes Mogale, 38, who was apparently patrolling on his own, left his patrol vehicle in Hatfield, got into Roux’s car and drove towards the N4 highway.
Security guard Richard Motenegi was on duty at a local business in Schoeman Street.
He noticed Roux’s white Polo moving “extremely slowly” towards the N4 in Hatfield. As he watched, two people fell out of the driver’s door while the car was moving.
“I saw the big guy on top of the metro cop. He was punching him in the face and hitting his head hard against the tar road.
“I was shocked because the metro cop was not fighting back, he was powerless because this guy was way bigger than him and he had overpowered him. He was already bleeding from the punches and his head hitting the ground,” said Motenegi.
Roux apparently noticed the car was about to leave the road, so he ran back to it to stop it.
Then he returned to Mogale, who was lying on the road.
“He started beating the guy again, lifting him off the ground and slamming him down so that his head would hit the ground first.
“While he was hitting him, he was busy saying (the cop) was trying to steal his car. He kept saying ‘You’re trying to steal my car, let’s see you take it now!’
“When he saw me getting closer, he jumped off the cop and started charging towards me, angrily asking whether I was one of the cop’s friends trying to steal his car,” said Motenegi.
Motenegi said Roux eventually stopped beating the cop and ran to his car, where he started hitting the steering wheel with his hands and holding his head as if in deep thought.
“He then ran back to the guy he had beaten and tried to wake him up. It appeared that he had realised what he had done, because everyone there could see that he was very, very drunk.
“When police came, they found him next to the metro cop, telling him that he needed to be strong as he could still make it,” he said.
Netcare 911, who were the first paramedics at the scene, declared Mogale dead within minutes. The attending medics confirmed Mogale had died from extensive injuries.
Sunnyside police station commander Brigadier Mahlomola Manganye confirmed Roux had been found by police on the scene, arrested and charged with murder. He said no weapon had been found.
