Sergeant Sam Pitlapitla describes being shot at by suspects he had to stop to keep civilians safe

When asked about any recent successes of the station, Fairland Police Station Commander Lieutenant Colonel Clive de Freitas immediately recalled a shootout and high-speed chase across the city.

“My members, like those at other stations, work extremely hard and place themselves in harm’s way without a thought if the need arises to try and keep our city safe,” he said.

Rather than describe the event himself, he asked the paper to interview Sergeant Sam Pitlapitla who helped execute a successful chase despite being shot at.

“I was driving on patrol when a tow truck alerted us that a truck had been hijacked on 14th Avenue in Fairland. We immediately gave chase and when we caught up with the vehicle the occupants started shooting at us,” said Pitlapitla.

He said as soon as that happened, he and his colleague knew they had to find a way to stop the vehicle. “If someone is willing to shoot at police, you know they will not care about civilian lives and we had to stop them somehow.”

“We cornered them at Gate 7 at Wits. They had made a U-turn but had nowhere to go. They tried to get away and we shot at their car. All four suspects were arrested and firearms seized. It was a good day.”

When asked if he was scared, he replied, “There is no time to be scared. You have to do your job and adrenaline takes over. This is what we signed up for. Luckily at the time we had our bulletproof vests on, but we would have given chase even if we didn’t because these were obviously dangerous people.”

He has seen a state psychologist and said it is ‘important to talk about these hectic things. It helps and enables us to do our job well the next time. We must talk about the stress but it doesn’t stop us from being willing to do it again’.

“I have been a policeman for 20-years and I look forward to the next 20.”