A police officer was shot while on patrol, bringing to four the number of officers gunned down in Cape Town in the past week.
|||Cape Town - A police officer was shot while on patrol on Tuesday night, bringing to four the number of police officers shot while on duty in Cape Town in the past week.
The 29-year-old sergeant is in hospital, in a critical but stable condition after being shot in Belhar at about 11.30 on Tuesday night.
The sergeant, who had not been named by Tuesday morning, and a colleague were on a routine patrol “when they spotted three suspicious looking men” on the corner of De Mist Avenue and Anreith Street, said police spokesman Warrant Officer November Filander.
“As they got out of [their] vehicle, the three suspects fired several shots at them, wounding [the] sergeant on the side of his body,” he said.
Police later arrested three suspects, aged between 18 and 24, all from Delft. A case of attempted murder has been opened.
At the scene of the shooting this morning, the Cape Argus found several residents discussing what had happened.
There were no eyewitnesses, “because everyone just ducks for cover when the first shots go off”, said Fatima Adams, who lives in the house adjacent to where the shooting took place.
“There were about 10 to 13 shots. Then, when it went quiet, we peeked out of the window and saw him lying there, bleeding against the van,” she said. The officer was shot in his side, and said that he couldn’t feel his legs.
“My brother-in-law ran to the fire station, and alerted the paramedics. They were on the scene very quickly, and then the ambulance came.”
Residents said Belhar had experienced a period of calm in recent weeks, due to an increase in visible policing.
“But as things go quiet, police naturally retract from the area.
“This opens up the door for gangsters to become active again. Now the police themselves have got a taste of what happens when visible policing is scaled down,” said one man.
“And why is there so much attention when one cop is shot in any case? What about our children that are bleeding in the streets every week?”
Calls for the army to be brought in to quell the gang war was a constant refrain among residents this morning.
“Who is to say that they shouldn’t be brought in? The people that make the decisions don’t live here on these streets,” said one resident.
Nadia Zempie, who lives in a Wendy house near where the shooting happened, said: “I moved here because I was hit with a stray bullet that went straight through the walls of my previous Wendy house,” she said.
“Now I live in fear again. There were outside shootings two weeks ago and now this. I just have to grab my baby and lie flat on the floor and hope that the bullets pass over me. What else can we do?”
* Police have asked anyone with information about the shooting to call investigating officer Captain Pine Pienaar on 021 953 8100.
* Three other police officers have been shot and killed in the city in the past week. Metro police superintendent Mpumelelo Xakekile, 50, was shot dead while issuing a fine to a taxi driver in Khayelitsha on Thursday.
SAPS constable Phindiwe Nikani, 26, and her colleague, Mandisi Nduku, 27, died after they were shot in Imizamo Yethu on Friday.
Cape Argus