“Morris Avenue resident” writes by email:
I came home on Friday morning, put the car away in the garage and carried my shopping bags into the house.
I was walking back to close the security gate at the front door when two young men accosted me in the doorway.
They grabbed me and dragged me to the first bedroom, where both tried to subdue me by throttling me, while I fought back as hard as I could.
One tightened his grip round my neck while the other tried to pull my panic button from my neck.
He was not successful and went to empty my handbag, leaving the second one to strangle me.
I was on the floor and managed to grab his ankles, making him lose his balance and fall, giving me the opportunity to press my panic button and set off the alarm.
Hearing the alarm, they ran out, jumped over the wall and ran down Morris Avenue.
In the meantime, a domestic worker at the flats over the road had seen the men climbing over my wall and had the presence of mind to ask the caretaker to phone the police.
CMS arrived quickly in response to the alarm.
By this time a group of domestic workers from the flats were at my gate and were able to give the security officers a description of the intruders and show them which way they had run.
They were soon joined by the SA Police, who followed the security car, while the Metro Police took the other route towards the railway station.
CMS went over the railway bridge and caught one of the men hiding in the bushes, and the Metro Police caught the other one, who was running away.
The SAPS took both men into custody.
I want to sincerely thank all those involved for their incredible response and professional handling of this incident.
I am particularly grateful to the domestic staff from the flats, who were quick to act on seeing suspicious behaviour and then came with great concern to see if I was alright.
In no time I had paramedics, a chaplain, CMS officers, SAPS, Metro Police and people from the flats in my home, assisting me.
It was heart-warming to see the reaction of the community and the manner in which they co-operated with security and police to apprehend these culprits.
