Gunshots fired at funeral for man stabbed at shopping centre

Waterfall and Crestholme residents had the harrowing ordeal of being subjected to gunshots being fired throughout the day on Saturday, 24 January and parts of Sunday, 25 January.

According to Karen Buxton, head of reaction for the Waterfall 3 Neighbourhood Watch, the gunshots were part of the funeral arrangements for the man who was stabbed outside a takeaway outlet in Link Hills Shopping Centre last week.

“The funeral took place on Saturday afternoon, and as a result the taxi association and various members of the public in Molweni decided to fire rounds from all sorts of firearms, including AK-47s!” said Buxton.

She received dozens of phone calls, SMSes and WhatsApp messages from concerned residents, who were petrified to go leave their homes in case they were shot by stray bullets. One Crestholme resident had a suspected 9mm bullet hit his roof.

“It was like living in a war zone, with gunshots going off constantly from the early morning until very late afternoon. We had shots fired on the Jaluka Farm road from an AK-47 and men running past towards Inanda Road. The Jaluka Farm road is 100 metres from a main road and very close to properties.”

Neighbourhood Watch members who were on patrol drove down to see what was going on, and confirmed that there were men standing near the taxi rank and in the vicinity of the graveyard with AK-47s and visibly showing off their hand guns.

“What this proves to me is that possession of illegal firearms in the township is being ignored, and the situation is going from bad to worse. It makes me wonder where all the firearms that people handed in went. SAPS members were not in attendance all the time during the course of the day, and were only seen on two occasions, as were Metro police.”

She extended a big thank you to SACan for their assistance on Saturday in getting police to come out, even if it was for a short time.

Buxton wants answers from the SAPS as to why nothing more was done in the situation, and what their future plan of action would be.

“It is madness that this is allowed to happen. I have not heard back from SAPS Hillcrest, but I am hoping to set up a meeting with them and would like for the other Neighbourhood Watch heads to be at this meeting. I need feedback from the police as to exactly what they are doing to prevent this from happening again, and also for them to have a proper plan of action in case it does happen.”

Captain Zwane, spokesperson for SAPS, said, “We can confirm that members were deployed to monitor the situation after there were allegation that the deceased’s friends were planning to destroy the mall. No one was injured and no damages reported.”