As of Tuesday morning, the “Let’s Get WO Sander a New Coffee Machine” Backabuddy campaign had raised R664,818 (goal: R5,000).
That’s not bad going in less than a week since the tearful Hawks warrant officer told the Madlanga commission that his coffee maker had been stolen from his office.
Just in case you think the Lucky Country isn’t a rolling pantomime sometimes, Karl Sander, a 40-year police veteran and a senior investigator with the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, was himself a suspect in the disappearance of the device.
Let us recall that Sander was also accused by his superiors of being involved in the theft of 541kg of cocaine bricks worth R200m from one of the agency’s facilities in Port Shepstone (despite being on leave at the time). He was ordered to take a polygraph test, which he was later told he had failed, though, as he told the commission, he never saw the results.
It comes as no surprise, then, that jaded, nervous South Africans, who expect little of value from their police, have latched onto the coffee machine story like a Labrador onto a stick.
While cops and their coffee are one of TV’s tiredest tropes, the thought of an exhausted investigator being forced to get through the day without jolts of caffeine has struck a chord. Half-a-million bucks would buy a lot of coffee machine, but it’s unlikely that Sander, as a police officer, is going to be allowed to keep the money.
He has suggested that the funds be used to buy a couple of Belgian Malinois, the dogs of choice for Navy Seal Team 6 and law enforcement generally, for drug detection work in Durban harbour, a suggestion that has led to even more effusive outpourings on social media.
Let’s see if that idea bites. Meanwhile, here’s hoping that Sander doesn’t quit the force and that his superiors don’t stiff him out of his espresso fix again.
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