THE SAPS Provincial Commissioner of Kwazulu-Natal, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, has issued a stern warning against self-appointed neighbourhood watch groups for taking the law into their own hands while patrolling their surroundings. This, he said, perpetuated crime and retaliation from criminals.
Today (July 19), the provincial commissioner gave feedback on SAPS engagements and progress since pre-election intervention in the province.
Mkhwanazi said he was pleased with the deployment of 1 500 additional SAPS members before, during and after elections in the province – a lot of whom remain deployed.
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“The attacks and gun battles against our members have been successfully mitigated, including mass murders. The province of KwaZulu Natal is a popular tourism destination and a lot of work has been done to ensure the safety of the environment and tourists. The stance that criminals seem to have taken, of resisting arrest and trying their luck in a gunfight with police officers, is our focal point of intervention.”
“We appreciate the role that communities play in preventing and fighting crime. However, we have seen a number of cases where neighbourhood patrollers have broken the law in their quest to fight crime. We plead with them not to overstep, but instead, they must work with local Crime Prevention Forums and the SAPS. These groups are not trained to fight crime, and in most instances, do not have the tools to face hardened criminals,” Mkhwanazi said.
He advised that community members forge solid coordination with their local police stations and create a workable chain of operation, whereby, in the case of suspected or identified criminal behaviour, police must be contacted to intervene. He said that community patrollers were meant to be the eyes and ears of the police, and if they wanted to fight crime, they should join law-enforcement agencies.
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According to Lieutenant-General Mkhwanazi, from April to date, a total of 35 145 suspects were arrested for a variety of criminal activities where more than 11 000 of them were arrested for contact crimes, which include murders, rapes and assaults.
“Along with those arrests, 953 firearms and several thousands of rounds of ammunition were recovered in the same period. During targeted and intelligence-led operations, 665 stolen and hijacked vehicles were recovered and 1 966kg of assorted drugs worth millions of rands were recovered. This includes a drug lab which was dismantled at Umgeni Park in June this year, as well as the R8 million worth of cocaine bricks which were recovered in Pietermaritzburg recently,” he added.
On prevalent cash-in-transit crimes, Lieutenant-General Mkhwanazi also warned businesses against keeping and transporting cash. He believed that cashless business transactions could minimise attacks and save more lives. With that said, he assured the business sector that they had established special task teams which had been attaining notable results.
The latest SAPS crime statistics indicated that KwaZulu Natal has seen an increase in contact crimes, with Durban Central Police Station among the highest reports.
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