Gun stolen in Eersterust Police Station invasion

Twelve people are reportedly in custody after they were positively linked to the Thursday evening invasion of Eersterust Police Station, and more have been taken in for questioning.

Some of the items stolen during the attack were a police firearm and a plasma TV.

The TV was later recovered.

The police have pledged to hunt down the culprits for the vandalism of the police station.

An unknown number of assailants stormed into the Eersterust Client Service Centre of the police station and broke windows, doors and computers.

Parliament’s police portfolio committee chairperson Francois Beukman has condemned the attack on the Pretoria police station, saying community protests in the name of anarchy would not be allowed.

He urged police management to implement the necessary security measures at high-risk police stations, including perimeter fencing, security gates and CCTV cameras.

Beukman said the crime intelligence capability in the cluster should be more proactive to ensure that any imminent threat against police stations could be detected early “if an eventuality of this nature arises”.

“It is again that local community that will suffer if the police infrastructure is destroyed since resource cannot be reallocated from other priority areas.”

Beukman said community leaders had a duty to speak out against the attacks on law-enforcement officers and police stations.

The attack is believed to be linked to protests in the area this week. Eersterust residents took to the streets on Tuesday in a service delivery protest.