Crime-fatigued Delft residents want police to impose an 11pm curfew and to get spaza shops to close at 9pm.
|||Cape Town - Crime-fatigued Delft residents want police to impose an 11pm curfew and to get spaza shops to close at 9pm.
This follows several gang shootings that have claimed two lives over the past few weeks.
Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said the shootings happened on Sunday, February 17.
The victims were Faizel Marks and Franklin Gabriels, both 29. Marks was walking with his son when a gunman shot him in the head, back and arm. Gabriels was shot eight times in the head, face and body.
Delft Community Police Forum chairman Reginald Maart said on Monday that the two shootings had shaken the community.
Meetings between residents and the police were held at Rosendal Primary over three days last week.
Maart said it was also suggested that police increase patrols of the area.
“Sometimes you find youngsters on the street corners after 10pm, and they can become targets for people wanting them to sell drugs.
The spaza shops normally operate late into the night, and people get caught in the gang shooting crossfire on their way to the shops.”
Maart said the forum had spoken to the City of Cape Town’s mayco member for safety and security, JP Smith, to see if he could help.
Smith said on Monday that there was no law that would allow policing forums to close spaza shops at night because they were protected by the constitution. He said that the city was in talks with the provincial government to see if there was a mechanism in the Provincial Business Act that would allow the city to deal with this.
Smith said that forcing spaza shops to close early would also allow criminals to roam freely at night and that better policing was necessary.
Van Wyk said there were no curfews in place from the police’s side, but that sector managers would be addressing residents’ concerns.
neo.maditla@inl.co.za
Cape Argus