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How police arm criminals: Negligence blamed for stolen firearms
The South African Gunowners’ Association is offering the Saps expertise and resources to stop the theft of guns from police stations.
Photo for illustration: iStock
The South African Gunowners’ Association’s (Saga’s) offer to provide the SA Police Service (Saps) with resources and expertise to stop the scourge of the loss of firearms in police storage has been welcomed as an important step.
But, to get the grip of the problem, experts believe it will also be vital to launch an investigation to gather facts on the extent and nature of police involvement in guns going missing under their watch.
Senior cops fingered in theft of 158 firearms at Norwood Police Station
This comes as a probe into Norwood Police Station in Johannesburg uncovered the theft of 158 firearms from the station’s Saps 13 store, with three senior police officials fingered in the investigation’s final report.
The Hawks audit into the Norwood Police Station evidence store revealed that the stolen weapons include R1, R4 and R5 rifles as well as AK-47 assault rifles.
The probe was sparked by an incident last year in which a firearm that was supposed to be in the Norwood Police Station store was used by robbers to kill a police officer during a shootout.
Calls for broader probe
Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police, has called for urgent measures to clean up the mess that is the Saps 13 stores as well as immediate action against police officers involved.
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In 2016, former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo was jailed for 18 years after pleading guilty to smuggling R9 million worth of weapons to gangsters in the Western Cape.
Only 12 of the 33 firearms stolen from the Mitchells Plain and Bellville police stations in August 2017 had been recovered in 2019.
Saga Chairperson Damian Enslin said the police had a track record of negligence with the storage of firearms and with firearms disappearing out of their Saps 13 stores.
“The police also report that, on average, around 700 official Saps firearms were either lost or stolen every year. Saga believes that Saps may understate the numbers of lost and/or stolen firearms,” he said.
Saga: Let us help
Enslin said it was for these reasons that they will be asking to meet Police Minister Bheki Cele and National Commissioner Lt-Gen Khehla Sithole to discuss these issues and find a solution to this problem.
He said they have the expertise, including a retired brigadier in their board of trustees as well as people well-versed in policing and administration systems.
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According to Enslin, it was the lack of control and adequate systems where firearms are checked, not just by the Saps 13 officer but also the next officer or supervisor, the station commander and the cluster commander.
“If there are proper systems and administration in place, the chances of firearms going missing become less. So we have the experience, we have the resources. That is why we want to meet the minister and national commissioner to offer our assistance,” he added.
Deal with root causes, not symptoms
Theodore Petrus, associate professor in anthropology at the University of the Free State, said Saga’s move was an important starting point, but said accurate information on the extent of the scourge was also equally important.
“We also need information about all these other dimensions; the infrastructural issues, training of police officers, problems in the police senior leadership structures. Those issues also need to be addressed because it really does not help that we just deal with the symptoms of the issue but we do not get to the underlying causes of these problems… it creates a new problem down the line,” he said.
Anti-Gang Unit commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, said to be closing in on senior Gauteng-based police officers fraudulently creating firearm licences for criminals, was gunned down outside his home in Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, in September 2020.
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