The police are always in the firing line as they fight crime. They work long hours and are often at the receiving end of communities wrath when crime stats become high.
The Randburg Police set themselves apart from their other colleagues as over 40 offices embarked on a night-long raid in and around the Randburg CBD, targeting drug dealers, drunk drivers, street robberies, and assaults. JMPD, Emergency Services, Land Invasion and Environmental Health Services all joined in on the operation.
Spokesperson for the Randburg Police Station, Constable Lekgora Bopape clocked in at 7am and knocked off way after midnight as they raided nightclubs and searched the streets for criminals.
Throughout the night they experienced abuse from residents standing outside taverns and bottle stores as they continued doing their job. Some petty criminals dispersed when they saw the blue lights coming, but the Randburg SAPS ran after a few, catching them where they can.
“This job does not have regular hours we work very hard to combat crime as crime is our enemy as the police,” he said.
He noted that foreign nationals posed a problem as they could commit crimes under the radar.
“On a night such as this one we deal with petty crimes to serious crimes and can make many arrests. It will be a quiet night as the criminals will warn each other that we are here,” he said. He admitted that this job is not for the faint-hearted as it is very dangerous work.
“When arresting a suspect one must be very careful as we don’t know if that person has a weapon on them,” he said.
Environmental officers from the Department of Environmental Health, Mbengeni Lihaiwa and Sifiso Mbele worked diligently all night closing one tavern that does not comply with their health and safety regulations and also issuing a few written warnings to other taverns in the area.
“We carry out routine inspections regularly but we do give the owners time to get their house in order and after that we have to issue fines or close down the premises until they have satisfactorily complied with the regulations,” Lihaiwa said.
With ten years of experience in the field, he added that if all else fails they take the non-complying owners to court.
“It is often difficult to get the owners to comply as some resist our efforts but we always follow through with our actions against them,” he explains.
Const Bopape counted 48 people that have been arrested for various crimes before heading home to get some much-deserved sleep at the end of an 18-hour shift.
Details: Randburg Police Station, 011 449 9100
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