Residents of Manenberg are expecting reprisals after a senior Hard Livings gang member and his friend were gunned down.
|||Cape Town - Residents of Manenberg are expecting reprisals by the Hard Livings gang after a senior gang member and his friend were counted among the victims of a number of deadly attacks on the Cape Flats.
Local police are also braced for the funeral service today of a teenage gang member, shot dead at his high school.
Spes Bona pupil Glenrico Martin, who had been linked to the Hard Livings gang, was gunned down at school on Wednesday last week. The Grade 12 pupil died in hospital after being shot in the back of the head at point-blank range as pupils were filing in for morning classes.
Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the murder.
Although no arrests have made after Thursday night’s hit in Rio Grande Street, which claimed the lives of Donovan Uys, better known in gangland as “Gansie”, and his friend Sandra Simpson, sources within the gang claim the attack is part of internal strife within the gang.
The two were shot and killed while sitting in Uys’s car just a few metres from Simpson’s home. Uys was shot in the neck and Simpson in the heart.
On Friday, as friends and family visited Simpson’s home to pay their respects, the dead woman’s mother Andeline Simpson said she had mistaken the shots for fireworks.
“My son went out to check, and when he came back he said we need to go out and look for ourselves. When I got there Sandra was still alive. She must’ve tried to escape from the car because her body was lying in the street and her foot was caught in the car door. She told her sister she was ‘getting cold’ before she died.”
The family said they believed the murders were intended to undermine an ongoing police case in the Athlone Magistrate’s Court.
Three years ago Simpson, Uys and several others were victims of a shooting in Peta Walk in Manenberg. Simpson was shot in the leg and buttocks.
A suspect was arrested and is on trial for the initial shooting.
Andeline Simpson said Uys and Simpson may have known the Thursday night gunman.
“Witnesses said the shooter stood at Donovan’s window and that they were talking before he pulled out the gun. They must have known him. Why else would they stop and talk with him?” she asked.
Simpson is survived by her 16-year-old daughter Simone and nine-year-old son Jason.
Uys’s brother Shawn said the family was deeply shocked. His brother left his common-law wife of 24 years, four children and five grandchildren.
“We expected this call for a very long time. We knew he was part of a gang, but not once did he bring that world into his home,” he said.
Shaun Uys said the family were unsure of the motive for the attack but that the law should take its course.
He denied earlier reports that his brother and Simpson were a couple, saying they were friends.
Funeral arrangements were being made for next week.
Weekend Argus