The fire hydrant faced Jan Smuts Ave, with a sloping lawn and a few trees behind it. That lawn is now covered with the Oppenheimer Life Sciences Building.
The people standing on the pavement are journalists and other non-students. Many of the students were sitting down. A rumor had arisen that if you were sitting down the police would arrest you without bashing you.
This was very early in the day, before police and Rand Afrikaans University students had gathered on the pavement opposite the protest. There is one lone RAU student sitting on the wall, waiting to watch the spectacle. By lunch time the student leaders and Prof Bozzoli had persuaded the protestors to stay on university property.
SB stands for Special Branch. They were the secret police, to whom no laws applied, and many of them infiltrated the protest, some very noticeable, some not. This one was being questioned by students.
