Cops fight Cape Flats gangsterism but struggling to handle crime load
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Gang violence in the Western Cape has kept crime intelligence busy discussing interventions to curb the surge, as seen in the shooting of several minors in the Cape Flats recently. Picture Henk Kruger/African News Agency(ANA)
Cape Town - The ongoing gang violence in the Western Cape has kept crime intelligence busy discussing interventions to curb the surge, as seen in the shooting of several minors in the Cape Flats recently.
The Standing Committee on Community Safety in the Western Cape legislature invited the SAPS, its Anti-Gang Unit (AGU), City law enforcement and the Department of Community Safety (DCS) yesterday to brief on measures to curb the surge in the province as well as existing challenges that hinder reducing crime.
Provincial acting police commissioner, Thembisile Patekile said they understood and accepted the fact that there were gang-related incidents occurring, mostly in the metropole.
Patekile said at some stations they had noted a decline in those incidents. “However, as we move to different (areas), it pops up, and then we see people killed like what has happened in Mfuleni this week, where six people were shot and killed in three separate shootings.”
Committee chairperson Reagan Allen said they would hold Patekile to account on his commitment to bringing stability to the police service in the Western Cape.
Allen said it became evident that the efforts by the Department of Community Safety (DCS), along with the City could only stretch so far in the absence of stability stemming from the national level, despite high levels of integration of all three bodies in the province.
The City’s law enforcement director, Robbie Roberts, said the metropole has experienced a large amount of serious and violent crimes relating to gang activities.
Roberts said those activities included drug crimes, illegal firearms and ammunition, armed robberies, murders and attempted murders.
“The ongoing turf wars lead to innocent community members being caught in the cross-fire, injured or killed and this has led to a negative perception in the media, in terms of policing in these areas,” said Roberts.
DCS’s chief director, Yashina Pillay, said they had been working closely with the police in fighting gangsterism in the province.
Cape Argus