A drug addict was killed by a mob when he and two friends tried to sell copper to a scrapyard in Mitchells Plain.
|||Cape Town - A 28-year-old drug addict was killed at the weekend when he and two friends tried to sell copper to a scrapyard in Tafelsig in Mitchells Plain.
Police confirmed that Taswald Simons was shot and stabbed on Sunday.
Simons and two others went to a scrapyard in Moira Street to sell copper when the owner accused one of them of having stolen from him.
Two of them fled the scene, but Simons was caught and grabbed by a group of people who stabbed him behind the ear and on his back. One shot him in the chest.
Provincial police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Andre Traut said no arrests had been made and the matter was under investigation.
Christina Simons, the dead man’s mother, admitted he was a drug addict and smoked dagga and Mandrax, but claimed her son had done nothing wrong.
“He was a person that didn’t harm others. Yes, he was on drugs, but he wasn’t a gangster,” she said sobbing. He was the oldest son and had three sisters and a brother.
Christina had received a call from a daughter while she was at work telling her to return home as “something had happened to Taswald”.
“I got there and my son was lying on the ground. I went through the police tapes and told the forensic who were taking photos that I want to see my son. As they were loading him on the stretcher his one eye was open, I closed it and told him mommy loves you.”
His sister, Marchalene, said she was very close to her older brother.
“I used to talk to him about everything, share jokes with him.”
Taswald would have started a new job on Monday, working as a casual labourer at the Cape Town docks. “He said he was going to sort himself out, but now he’s dead,” she said.
The family was due to go to the Salt River morgue on Monday to officially identify Taswald’s body. His mother said that dealing with the loss of her son was heart-breaking.
zodidi.dano@inl.co.za
Cape Argus