Metro officer wounded
A Metro police officer was left in a critical condition after he was shot in the leg, following a car chase with a taxi driver.
METRO police officials swarmed Ridge Road in New Germany on Friday 20 September, at approximately 1pm, after a metro police officer was shot.
According to Lt Bongumusa Manqele, Pinetown SAPS communications officer, the metro officer had tried to flag down a taxi driver at the taxi rank on Anderson Road in Pinetown, to issue him a “ticket”, but the taxi driver refused to stop.
Metro police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Eugene Msomi, said the taxi driver tried to drive over the officer.
A car chase started, with metro police chasing the taxi driver up the M13, through Kloof and Wyebank and eventually cornering him at his home on Ridge Road in New Germany.
According to Lt Manqele, the taxi driver was joined by two other men.
Lt Manqele also reported that during an altercation with the three men, the metro police officer removed his gun from his holster and one of the men tried to grab the firearm from the officer.
“In the struggle the firearm was discharged and the metro police officer was accidentally shot in the left thigh,” said Manqele.
Msomi supported Manqele’s report.
It is believed that the taxi driver’s brother and his father were the two men who became involved in the incident.
Vanessa Jackson, the spokesman for ER24 reported on Friday that the officer is in a critical, but stable condition after paramedics air lifted him to St Augustine’s Hospital shortly after he was shot.
“The case is still under investigation and we do not know why the taxi driver refused to stop,” added Msomi.
