Minister of Police General Bheki Cele has assured Zandspruit residents that their claims of the local police station not responding to their distress calls would be urgently investigated.
Cele visited the informal settlement in Johannesburg on 22 May following the gruesome killing of eight youths in an apparent act of vigilantism.
Cele, together with the MEC of Community Safety in Gauteng, Faith Mazibuko, met with provincial police management to get a full briefing about the vigilante killings and what progress police have made on the case.
Cele also had an engagement with community leadership structures to find out what could have led this community to take the law into their own hands.
[WATCH] #CeleInZandspruit Police Minister Gen Bheki Cele arrives at the #Zandspruit sport grounds to address the communit who are here in their numbers. This is the same area where the 8 men were killed in the ##ZandspruitMobJustice pic.twitter.com/Zh8zYKWWQS
— Lirandzu Themba (@LirandzuThemba) May 22, 2021
Police ministry spokesperson Lirandzu Themba said, “This meeting saw representatives of the local CPF and other recognised community safety structures, expressing the residents’ policing and safety concerns. They also reported to the police minister and the provincial police team that the Honeydew Police Station provides poor service to the community.
“They claim the local police are not only corrupt but at times ignore their policing needs. Some in the meeting believe the death of the eight youngsters who were severely assaulted and burnt could have been avoided if police responded on time.”
In his address to the community gathered at the local sports grounds where the murders took place, Cele told residents that he was convinced the community of Zandspruit deserved improved service delivery.
Cele said, “There is no doubt police in this area have many challenges due to the ever-increasing population size and poor living conditions that impede on crime-fighting efforts, however, some of the problems faced by the police are self-made. It’s disheartening to hear that calls were made to the police while the youngsters were still alive but yet police vans took hours to respond, so that’s why I have tasked the provincial commissioner to get to the bottom of these claims and I expect answers in the coming days.”
A police task team has been put together to look at other identified problems within the station as well as relook at all cold cases that have been dragging on with little to no conclusion.
Themba added that Cele had committed to return to the area in less than a month to provide feedback to the residents on what had been done to improve the station’s performance and service delivery.
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