THE community is urged to be cautious when driving along the Gorge Road at night as two cars were allegedly shot at on Saturday night.
Freek Vermaak was travelling up Bridle Road from Kloof towards Waterfall at 6.41pm on Saturday, 22 November, near the turn off to the Gorge View when he heard a load bang against the left side of his company bakkie.
“I thought it very weird as I did not see anyone on the sidewalk and the antennae on my vehicle was not long enough to have clipped an overhanging tree branch. It was extremely misty, raining and dark, so I did not want to stop and carried on driving home.”
When he got home, he inspected the vehicle and noticed a distinct bullet ricochet mark on the left side on the steel canopy of the bakkie.
“I told my wife and daughter about what had just happened and my daughter told me that she was coincidentally at that very moment busy reading about a similar complaint by someone on Upper Highway Crimewatch’s FB page.”
He decided to report a case of attempted murder to the Kloof SAPS as he was of the opinion that it was a gunshot. He did not want to drive down Bridle Road again in case he had been shot at, so he travelled via Everton Road through Kloof to the Kloof SAPS Satellite station.
“Sergeant Zulu was very helpful, had a look at the bullet mark on the side of my vehicle but advised that the incident took place in Hillcrest SAPS’s jurisdiction and although we could report the case there at Kloof SAPS, it would be transferred to Hillcrest SAPS via Pinetown and that it would take time for the case to receive attention.”
He decided to drive to Hillcrest SAPS to report the matter directly. Upon entering Hillcrest at about 7.30pm, he realised it was in total darkness due to load shedding, this included the Hillcrest Police Station.
“Only after I called out ‘Hallo’, did a voice from the dark say ‘I’ll be there now’. A policeman appeared from the dark offices, but had absolutely no form of light with him. My daughter then used the torch app on her phone for light.
“When I asked if they had a generator or any emergency light, he said no and said ‘I’ll be back now’ and disappeared again into the darkness. He appeared again quite a while later with a Canola type candle and took down my complaint.”
In the meantime the other complainant, Anelda Fouche, had arrived after Vermaak recommended via Facebook that she did so.
The side panel of her vehicle was damaged on the left side, just above the petrol cap about an hour before Vermaak’s car, also along Bridle Road. The police examined both vehicles.
“I would like to appeal to anyone else who had their car shot at as well, to please report it to Captain Sibiya of the Hillcrest SAPS, who is the investigating officer of the two reported cases. The damage to our vehicles may not be significant, but the consequences could have been fatal.”
